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One of our strongest leaders, our co-founder and investor, Lindsay Wheeler, has poured so much of her time into our organization. We wanted to send her a warm farewell as she departs from our board to pursue other projects.
When Lindsay co-founded Virginia Highland District Association, she “set out with 2 primary goals: to elevate our business district so that our local businesses could thrive and to get the community out in a more engaged way.” The toughest part of Lindsay’s job has been figuring out how, and she’s helped us kick-start an amazing adventure into finding the answers to that question.
After embarking upon a journey to find top-notch tenants to fill the empty business spaces in the neighborhood, she found out that getting the neighborhood to buzz like she wanted would take much more. Lindsay quickly realized that the neighborhood needed “an ecosystem of support in place.”
To kick start the project of building up this ecosystem, Lindsay and her husband Tyler provided funding that could help us launch beautification projects and events that would bring foot traffic to the neighborhood. She helped us generate many liaisons with tenants and landlords, and she has recognized many of the organization’s other needs, such as obtaining a non-profit 501(c)(3) status, getting together a strong group of board members, and building awareness of our organization’s goals and projects.
Remarking upon “fully passing the baton” to our co-founder and executive director Katie, Lindsay underscored that Katie “has dedicated her life to cultivating a more inclusive, vibrant community, and I am wishing her my best as she takes this brand we have worked hard to build to the next level.”
Throughout her time with our organization, Lindsay has given her heart and put forth endless hours to make sure “every tenant and community member works together in harmony to help keep everyone and everything thriving.”
While Lindsay has done so much to bolster our organization, she hopes we can accomplish even more:
We have blossomed with Lindsay’s help, and we will miss her vibrant leadership, but we know her love for the neighborhood is here to stay. In our latest newsletter, Lindsay explained that to reach our goals, “It takes a village, and we have the best village.”
