PARKERSBURG - Three years after leaving the Mid-Ohio Valley, Katy Sulfridge has moved back to continue her work with nonprofit organizations.
Sulfridge left her position as emergency services director for the Mid-Ohio Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross in 2009 and will begin her new position as executive director for the Volunteer Action Center in Parkersburg on Monday.
"My husband (Luke) and I just missed the Mid-Ohio Valley, it's home," said Sulfridge. "When I was offered the position with the Volunteer Action Center, it made coming home now an easy decision."
While Sulfridge originally left the area to become executive director of the Daniel Boone Chapter of the American Red Cross in Richmond, Ky., two years ago she and her husband moved to Boone County, N.C., to work as an executive of that Red Cross chapter.
"It has been a great three years and we have done a lot, but it was time to come back to the Mid-Ohio Valley," Sulfridge said. "We had definitely been looking at opportunities and the job with the Volunteer Action Center was the first realistic opportunity to come home."
Sulfridge was raised in Clarksburg, Ohio, and met her husband, Luke, a Mid-Ohio Valley native, while attending Berea College before she became involved with the local Red Cross after volunteering on Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in 2005. She joined the Red Cross staff in 2007.
Sulfridge and her husband moved back to the area in the middle of the power outages from the June 29 storm before the July 4 holiday.
"It was pretty crazy," she said. "But we're so happy to be back."
As for her new job with the VAC, which matches individuals with volunteer opportunities in the community, Sulfridge has high hopes.
"I have really been looking forward to the volunteer base in the Mid-Ohio Valley, which is absolutely spectacular," she said. "I like the idea of getting the chance to work with the familiar and new faces.
"There's such a giving spirit here that I hope it will make my new job easier," Sulfridge joked.
