Carol Gann: 2019 Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship Recipient

To honor the memory of Kim Parsell, the WordPress Foundation set up a memorial scholarship to ensure that Kim’s core values would continue to be infused into the WordPress community. Today they announced that the recipient this year is Carol Gann.

Kim was an avid supporter of women participating and thriving in all aspects of the WordPress community. This year’s recipient, Carol Gann, a Meetup coordinator from the WordPress Orlando Community, is a woman who is doing just that.

Carol has been a WordPress devotee since 2005. When asked what WordPress means to her, Carol states, “To me, WordPress means freedom to create, explore, and problem solve using the incredible theme and plugin system and a fantastic developer community. WordPress is a gift; my family has been raised to a new economic level. We are loving life. For this, I am grateful.

Speaking of the WordPress community, Carol had more to add. “I truly enjoy getting together with other WordPress developers because it makes powerful things happen. Projects become collaborations, ideas become movements, and chance encounters become lifelong connections. What could be better?!”

Carol goes above and beyond to make others welcome in her local WordPress community. She attends meetups, has spoken at WordCamp Orlando (2016 and 2017) and has been a member of the WordCamp Orlando organizing team serving as the Volunteer Coordinator from 2011 – 2015. She has even created online tutorials and screenshot videos as WordPress educational tools and ventured into her community to teach small business owners and start-ups how to edit their own websites.

All of the above are wonderful contributions to the WordPress community, but there is something else that stands out in Carol’s mind regarding her favorite way to contribute. “My proudest contribution to the WordPress open source project is training small business owners and bloggers to be comfortable and conversant with their own WordPress websites. WordPress empowers people. Many end users of WordPress are not technically minded. As a WordPress Meetup co-organizer, I contribute to the coffee help desk, assisting others in finding solutions to their WordPress problems. I also host another help desk opportunity, ‘Coffee With Carol,’ to empower WordPress users.”

Please join us in congratulating Carol and welcoming her to WordCamp US 2019! 

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