I received an email with some nominations for our La Porte County Life in the Spotlight series the other day. One of the names, Kristen Patterson, stuck out to me. So I gave her a call and… read on below to find out more about this week’s Life in the Spotlight.
Patterson was born and raised in Michigan City, IN. She attended Marsh, Krueger, MCJH, and MCHS. She played soccer all throughout high school, she was part of the honor’s society and the foreign language honor’s society, steering committee, Bible club, and her favorite subjects were German and English.
“My parents would describe my as confident, friendly, stubborn,” Patterson said with a laugh.
After she graduated high school, Patterson attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where she received a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education with an emphasis in English. She was an RA for two years, involved with student ministries, and developed a penchant for running and biking during her time in college.
From Nebraska, Patterson made her way to Las Vegas, Nevada where she procured a job as an 8th grade English teacher. After seven years of teaching and over four years of being the department head, Patterson came back to her home town to be close to her family.
And that’s when she became the Director at the Grace Learning Center of Michigan City. The Grace Learning Center is a nonprofit organization that helps adults and teens improve their lives with tutoring, workshops, seminars and job placement help. It is an organization of Citizens Concerned for the Homeless.
“I really enjoy interacting with the community in an intentional way, not just saying hi to people, I like the fact that I can help them get in a certain direction,” Patterson said. “We’ve gotten that way because our partnering agencies are so helpful. If I can’t help them here I can send them somewhere else. We have truly non-competitive relationships between agencies. I really love that about my job. We can tangibly help people change their lives.”
Patterson’s daily job duties include (but aren’t limited to): writing grants, reporting for the grants, creating programs that benefit La Porte County, she is in charge of community outreach, news and events, recruiting volunteers, and she teaches job search and resume writing work shops a few nights a week.
But Patterson doesn’t do it alone. She has a devoted crew of volunteers to help her.
“I’ve got an amazing group of volunteers and they help out from anything from tutoring to computer classes. Some help me write letters, some help me contact business…We just have the best guys around. I would be able to do anything without them,” Patterson exclaimed.
Outside of her job at the Learning Center, Patterson goes to as many community related events as possible. She shops and eats local, and she just enjoys the area.
“I love La Porte and Michigan City. If I can’t be at an event I do my best to promote it,” Patterson said. “I love that I after being gone for 12 years I see that we’re a connected community. It really feels like a big extended family. Michigan City is changing yet bent on keep its roots. It’s big on innovation and bringing in more jobs. I love that. And since part of what I do is connecting people with jobs, I’m excited to be a part of it. We’ve go so much going on here.”
In her free time, Patterson volunteers as much as she can, she loves biking and being outdoors, hangs out with her friends, and spends lots of time with her family. She makes it a point to spend every Sunday after church with her grandmother. Patterson.
The piece of advice that Patterson shared is credited to her friend Joan Paye.
“You feed the things you want to grow from,” Patterson said, repeating Paye’s words. “If I want to be happy I will feed the things that make me happy. If I am doing something that I don’t like then I will stop feeding into that.”
It doesn’t get much simpler and clear-cut than that. Now you know why Kristen Patterson makes a great La Porte County Life in the Spotlight.
Hey everyone, did you know that you can recommend people for our Life in the Spotlight series? Yup, just send us an email with the person’s name and why you think they should be a Life in the Spotlight to share@ideasinmotionmedia.com.