By: Ryan Duey
Sophia Gallup, Co-Chair of LIFT Clay County, a recently formed young professionals organization through Grow Clay County was the guest speaker at the Clay Center Lions Club weekly meeting on January 21st. Gallup spoke about LIFT and its importance to the County.
LIFT Clay County’s main focus is to offer an organization for professionals, mainly under the age of 40, a group for professional development, community engagement, and more. With hopes of retaining young talent in Clay County. Gallup explained the Pillars of LIFT.
“LIFT stands for “Lead, Inspire, Foster, and Thrive.” That is what we want out of our group here in Clay County. We have three different pillars: professional development, networking and fun, and community engagement leadership.”
“We’ll have different people that run events and do different things. So, we’re not just doing all professional development. We have things that will bring people out to have fun and we’ll do other things that might help people be part of the community.”
Gallup and Kathryn-Doster Tipsword of Grow Clay County are the Co-Chairs of LIFT. Gallup said that they sent out a survey on what people would like to see out of the group. She said the number one thing was connections: being part of the community and having friends.
Gallup said they plan to hold at least four events this year.
“We will have two networking and fun events. Our big kickoff event, we’re hoping to do in March, like around St. Patrick’s Day. We’ll then have a couple professional development events, and then a community engagement leadership event.”
“Some ideas we got were helping new families move into the community. Our group would be the ones that could go and help them unload their trailer and get them into their house and give them resources, like Flyers and stuff that would just help them get integrated into the community.”
Their next meeting will be held on February 20th. Contact Gallup or Tipsword at their emails below with any questions, or if you are interested in joining LIFT Clay County.
