BY KARYL ANN ARMBRUSTER

This month’s Lunch with a Leader presented for the community by the League of Women Voters will be on July 16 at 11:45 a.m. at Mesa Public Library Library.  Two very important Los Alamos based services, Self Help and LA Cares will be presenting.

Speaking for LA Cares will be Linda Burns. She is originally from Delaware, but she and her husband, Don, came to Los Alamos 30 years ago, by way of Wisconsin and New York, where their three children grew up.

Burns graduated from Ursinus College with a major in math, and the University of Michigan where she earned a Masters in Library Science.  She was the assistant librarian for the Library Commission for the state of Delaware and then a stay at home mom but did medical transcriptions part time.

Burns was looking for an activity, after years of volunteering in both Boy and Girl Scouting, PTA, when she saw a small item in the Monitor “Food Distribution….This month seeking donations of pasta and pasta sauce.”  That did it, and here she is, more than 24 years later, 22 of them as secretary of the LA Cares Board.

Our other speaker representing Self-Help, Maura Taylor, came as an 8th grader to Los Alamos.  After graduating from LAHS, she went to Lewis and Clark College where she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in economics. She left work in Portland, OR as a financial analyst to take her dream job of management of  a non-profit in the town she took for granted growing up!  In her free time, she’s a singer who has been a solo performer as well as a member and founder of several ensembles.

There will be lunch from the CO+OP if you wish to order one. Contact Karyl Ann Armbruster at kaskacayman@gmail.com or 505.231.8286 for a description of what is available.