The Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) staff has grown exponentially during the pandemic. But while you’re meeting many new staff members in our newsletter, many of you may already know Project Manager: Ages Prenatal-3 Michelle Chapin.
“I started working with Ready Ready in 2017 as a contract staff member to support early literacy and our Continuous Quality Improvement work,” Chapin said. “Now I help advance our collaborative work with expansion program partners, families, and medical homes.”
Chapin said having more staff capacity has really catapulted Ready Ready into a position to tackle the extensive work that the organization has long envisioned, tested, and piloted – remaining true to our mission and vision. “Having more staff with a variety of expertise, diversity, and backgrounds has helped us better inform how we approach our work to the benefit of Guilford County families.”
Chapin particularly enjoys working with community partners to create population-level change in her role at Ready Ready. “We work with such a great wealth of experience and knowledge through our community partners,” she said. “Working alongside Guilford County families with their own lived experiences and perspectives is critical because we’re building a system of care with families that needs to work for families.”
Outside of her work day, Chapin enjoys running outdoors. She said the physical activity helps her with work-life balance, and enjoying the scenery is equally refreshing. “Around our neighborhood, I see deer, chipmunks, and have even seen a fox. It’s just relaxing to be out, and when you see something like that in the wild or your backyard, you just stop and are in awe of it.”
Something else she finds therapeutic? “My therapy is cleaning horse stalls. It’s both rewarding and a great workout,” she said. “My daughter’s passion is riding, and having an activity we can do together is really important to me. We are together at the barn where she rides, taking care of our horse, Q. It’s rewarding to have a project that you can see from start to finish, marking your progress and having the result of a neat and tidy space when you’re done.”