SEPTEMBER FEATURED FEW

Meet our September Featured FEW, who is also our new FEW Website Manager!

Name: Grace Davidson-Thooft

Organization/Title: Campus Outreach Manager and Box Office Assistant for Fine Arts Programming at CSB/SJU.

Length of time as a FEW Member? One month!

Hometown? Goshen, Massachusetts

Family? Husband of one year, Taylor

What do you actually do at work? Outreach around arts on campus and the Fine Arts Series, engaging campus students in the arts, social media management and website management, along with managing box office student employees and serving as an assistant manager for our box office.                        

What was your first job? I worked at the after-school program for our district with K–6 students.

How do you help others succeed? Listening first, finding out what others really want and continually encouraging and lifting them up towards those goals but understanding and validating their struggles and their own realities. Nothing gives me more joy than being the cheerleader for my friends, family and students!

Is your desk/office messy or organized? My work-from-home office is very organized, cleaned everyday…Now, my work office I haven’t seen since March 18 is a different story…It will be a big surprise to see what state I left it in!

Favorite vacation spot? My husband and I got engaged in Maui. I daydream about returning when the pandemic settles down!

Who is your oldest friend and where did you meet them? My oldest friend, Sarah, and I met on the first day of third grade which was also my first day at a new school after we had moved to Massachusetts. I sat next to her and told her we were going to be best friends. Even with our lives looking very different and with my move halfway across the country seven years ago, we still text or call at a minimum every week if not daily.

Who is your hero? It truly is my mom. She is a fierce businesswoman with incredible work ethic, a big personality and a bigger heart. I’ve seen her work her way up from bottom to the top more times than she should have had to in her career and in life. She also was willing to sacrifice so much when her family needed her. I followed in her footsteps by moving away from home at a young age to find my own place and where I belonged. I don’t know how she balanced it all, or continues to, but I’m grateful for all of her encouragement and the example she set forward for me and my sisters.

Do you have any silly fears? Recently, crickets are my irrational fear.