Stack Elected To National Poverty Board

from the Leesburg Today

By Margaret Morton

In another honor for veteran Loudoun County Family Services employee Susan Jane Stack, it was announced today that she has been elected to the National Community Action Partnership board of directors.

Stack was nominated by her colleague Karen Velez, who heads up the county's Holiday Community Coalition program.

"I'm very excited to get it," Stack said today. She said she was surprised to have been selected because the vote for national board is conducted by the more than 140 executive directors of CAPs in the region. She was particularly surprised because she thought it likely a representative from one of the states with large numbers of CAPs would have been elected.

Stack was one of four nominated for the seat.

One of the main aims of the NCAP is to cut poverty in half across the nation. Stack recently was instrumental in organizing a Loudoun Cut Poverty In Half Conference with that aim in conjunction with the Town of Leesburg and the Human Services Network. Stack said today, her job and those of her fellow board members to work toward that goal along with all the CAPs they represent across the county.

Stack will represent the six-state Region III, which covers Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia.

The director of community resources for the department, Stack currently serves as the executive director of Loudoun's Community Action Program. The programs were established in the 1960s as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, with a goal of providing services that give people a "hand up out of poverty," by operating emergency food programs, homeless shelters and Head Start, day care and community development programs.

Some CAPS are nonprofits, while Loudoun's is housed at the Department of Family Services. Nonprofits that provide many of the same services are invited to submit proposals to the Loudoun CAP for funding by the Community Action Advisory Board, which is comprised of public officials, Loudoun residents living in poverty and members of the public at large.