Re-starting and running this small non-profit is an encore career for Klara. She has an MEd in Religious Education and Post Master’s Certificate in Spirituality from Boston College. After teaching first grade for 6 years, she worked for 20 years as a religious educator in the Episcopal Church, first at St. Paul’s in Brunswick and later as the religious education consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Her book Living Water: Baptism as a Way of Life (Church Publishing, 2002), is a guided reflection on living your faith in your life.
In 2006 Klara decided to change course, return to Maine and start look for an encore career. After a winter stint answering phones at LL Bean, her first job was at Advocates for Children as a parent educator, where she learned a lot about the social service system! All the while she volunteered at what was then called “Wisdom’s Center.” When the Daughters of Wisdom determined that they could no longer maintain the work they had founded 9 years previously, and closed the center in 2008, Klara gathered a group to raise funds to keep it going. Seven years later, it is her passion.
To further her non-profit leadership skills, in 2011 Klara participated in the Leadership Development Institute of the Maine Association of Non-Profits. She is an active member of Trinity Church which is located in the same neighborhood and which serves as the fiscal sponsor of the Center. She dabbles in photography and lives in Auburn with her dog Scooter, a rescue Maltese mix and Oliver, a Maine Coon cat.