We are pleased to announce the addition of Dawn Epp to our staff, taking on the role of Case Manager! She joins Tanya Chalfant to walk closely with guest families towards their goals and into sustainable lives.
As we have learned and grown over the past few months, we have restructured our staff to direct more resources towards work with our families and our Second Rotation Expansion, so adding Dawn is another piece of that puzzle. Dawn will work with guests and also assist with building some of the systems needed to expand our work and double the families we serve.
Dawn has been a stellar volunteer with Family Promise, serving as the Volunteer Coordinator for one of our Host Congregations, Hope Mennonite Church. She has grown to love the mission of Family Promise and most recently has been serving on the Congregational Recruitment Team, volunteering as our Graduate Case Manager, and assisting the Almost Home team with brokering landlord relationships for temporary/transitional housing — including a very instrumental role in our latest unit, Hope Home.
Dawn grew up in the southeast Kansas area in the small town of Girard. She received her Accounting degree from Pittsburg State University and moved to Wichita to work for Cessna Aircraft Company. She also spent part of her corporate world experience at Koch Industries.
Shortly after moving to Wichita, she met her husband Greg Epp and his been married to him for 23 years. They have two boys — Alex, who will be a senior at Maize South next year, and Isaac, who will be joining him as a freshman. The only other girl in her home is a small dog named Charlie!
After her time in the corporate world, Dawn stayed home to raise her two boys — the job that she is the most proud of. She began volunteering at St. Anthony Family Shelter and has been there for the last seven years. There her passion and love for homeless families grew as she worked alongside wonderful staff in helping pursue the very important mission that they fill in our community. At St. Anthony’s, she served as the Volunteer Coordinator and most recently as Case Manager Assistant.
In her spare time, you can find Dawn in the stands at a baseball game cheering on her two boys, plus her extra two college boys that her family hosts in the summer for the Cheney Diamond Dawgs. She loves to read and often has at least three books going at a time. She also runs and spends a lot of time plugging in to her church in various ways. If she had more time in her day, she would spend more time in downtown Wichita with other couple friends or her girlfriends at the awesome restaurants Wichita has to offer.
Dawn’s heart for our program is clear:
“I truly love these families. They inspire me every day with their resilience, love for their kids, and their ability to do the hard work to break the cycle of poverty. Walking alongside them is a humbling experience.”
She also says, “In his sermon last Sunday, my wonderful pastor said, ‘Never let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do.’ This fits so perfectly with the mission of Family Promise and the role that all of the volunteers and staff play in the lives of homeless families. We can’t fix everything, but we can all do what we can.”
Welcome Dawn! Thank you for the example you set and your dedication to our families. We are so grateful to have you with us.
Family Promise of Greater Wichita unites hearts and hands to provide compassionate hospitality and empower homeless families with children to achieve sustainable independence. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax-deductible.
