Since moving to the Chicago area from her native Canada in the 1990s, Karen Donnan has been deeply involved in the Wilmette community.
“They say it takes a village to raise a child. But it takes amazing women to make that village flourish. Karen Donnan is one of those amazing women,” says her friend Peggy Lilly.
A former nurse, Donnan spent several years serving as president of the PTO at Wilmette Junior High School and was also president of the Rotary Club of Wilmette Harbor. In 2008 she trained as a First Responder with the Wilmette Police & Fire Department, to assist the village in the event of a disaster. In 2007 Donnan received the New Trier Township George Noyes Community Service Award.
And she’s just parlayed her many years of volunteer work into a job: Donnan recently became director of development for the Family Service Center, where she was previously a board member on the fundraising committee.
When not serving on a board or working on a new event, she still finds time to travel, enjoy drinks and dinner with friends and family and will often be found down at the beach with her dog, Bear.
