United Way of Crookston Executive Director Lori Wagner has submitted her resignation effective April 15.
Wagner said she intends to take some time with family and friends. “Right now, my last official day with the United Way is April 15,” said Wagner. “I’m just going to have fun with my family, sister, kids, grandkids, and my girlfriends, and just hang out for a while. I’m at that age right now where I’m just going to take some time for Lori.”
Wagner also said the COVID-19 has been a challenge, but she’s probably learned more in the past year than any previous year. “I probably learned more this year than any other year,” said Wagner. “What I do is always face-to-face. I go into businesses. I talk to people. Tell them what the United Way is, what the agencies are about, and what the United Way’s mission is about. It’s very face-to-face and very relationship (oriented). This year was very hard to do that, or we could not do that because of COVID-19. But we have such great donors, and everyone has given great this year. It was a year of learning. The United Way and Lori learned a lot of things.”
The United Way of Crookston is also in great shape, and Wagner said she hopes to reach their yearly goal before her final day. “United Way in Minnesota has over 50 chapters,” said Wagner. “About a month ago, we had a Zoom call with all of them, and they asked how many of us will make our goal this year. At that time, we were one of eight that were predicted to make our goal. I do believe we will make our goal this year, and we have until September. But my personal goal is to achieve 100 percent of our goal before I leave. We’re at 97 percent right now and have about $4,900. So, my personal drive is to do that by April 15.”
Wagner said she’ll also help with the transition to a new executive director. “United Way here will stay strong and committed,” said Wagner. “They have a great board. Becky (Cymbaluk) is our admin, she’s awesome, and we have great committees. So, nothing will change here, and I will again be here until April 15 and helping with the smooth transition of whoever the lucky person is who will be taking my position. So, please continue to donate to this wonderful cause and mission. It’s a great place.”
Wagner concluded by thanking various organizations and the community as a whole. “I just really want to thank the media,” said Wagner. “The media has always been really good to me wherever I’ve been, whether it was the Chamber, CVB, United Way, Ox Cart (Days). I want to thank the United Way. I want to thank the community. No matter where I’ve been, it’s been really great. After my departure, I may not be a stranger within the community. I’m planning to take a break, but I’m feeling some pull to explore politics in some form. That might take some time to see what comes of that. With today’s political environment, I feel we all need to take some boots on the ground, help out in our community, help out with voting, or some type of things. We all need to be active within our community. I do believe I’ve had some calling from God in that way, so we’ll see where that takes us. But I just want to thank everybody for believing in me.”
Wagner’s resignation letter is below –
[embeddoc url=”https://kroxam.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Lori-resignation-letter.pdf”]
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