Furman Wesley<\/a>.\u00a0 On Tuesday nights in the Garden Room, along with a few visits to the counseling center, I finally found my people and my place. They were my home away from home and I think I spent more time in the Chapel or at other Wesley events than I did in my dorm room that year.<\/p>\nAfter I graduated, I joined AmeriCorps and started working with Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County as their Volunteer Coordinator. I stayed on full time after my AmeriCorps term and was there for 12 years. I loved our mission of giving families homeownership through \u201ca hand up, not a handout.\u201d During that time, I met my soon-to-be-husband at church (when we figured out that we lived across the parking lot in the same apartment complex and started spending A LOT of time together). We got married and had 2 kids (Wesley & Claire, and yes, my son may be named Wesley partly due to my love of all things Methodist).<\/p>\n
When COVID rocked the world, I parted ways with Habitat. I decided to stay home with my kids and ran my own business \u2013 called Creative and Created \u2013 where I made Christian themed handmade wood signs, engraved signs and other engraved wood gifts and d\u00e9cor. I also worked part-time remotely with another great non-profit, JUMPSTART. They began expanding beyond SC into other states to help run in-prison discipleship classes, provide housing and employment, and general life assistance to help those recently released from prison reacclimate to society.<\/p>\n
In the last year or so, my work with both JUMPSTART and my own business really slowed down, and I was feeling restless and bored. Then I was notified by some job search email that I was receiving for an unknown reason (I didn\u2019t sign up for it) that this position at Furman was open and accepting applications. I also heard about it from a good friend and on my LinkedIn page, and on my Facebook page. It was like a big neon sign that said, \u201cApply Now!\u201d When I left Habitat, I had worked with a career counselor for a bit since they provided it for me. One of the exercises they had me do was to make a list of \u201cdream places to work\u201d and Furman was at the top of that list. I knew I\u2019d found the place I was supposed to be when it combined my love of organization and helping, my fond memories of time spent in the Chapel, and the chance to work with another amazing non-profit that gives students a hand up, not a handout. I am so grateful that I ended up here and I have the opportunity to be part of your lives and the lives of so many students to come. I\u2019m excited to help you find your place in the world \u2013 whether it\u2019s with one of our religious groups or not. I want to be a friend you can talk to or cry with or pray with, a resource for you if you need assistance with anything, and someone to cheer you on or cheer you up when you need it. Just call or email or stop by. I hear my big purple chairs are some of the best around \u2013 so come sit for a while and visit. I can\u2019t wait to meet you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi! My name is Karen Olson.\u00a0 I\u2019m the new Administrative Assistant for the Office of Spiritual Life and I also will be assisting the Bridges to a Brighter Future Program. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I grew up in North Carolina and came to Furman in 2004 as a slightly terrified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-osl-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}