In the past 15 months of publishing Palm Coast magazine we’ve been fortunate enough to meet some highly qualified people who are helping various organizations in the city to basically exist. Without the contributions of these people, many of whom are women, many civic organizations and charities just wouldn’t be here.
Our person of the month in October is someone who epitomizes the spirit of these volunteers. Her name is Nancy Crouch and she’s been here for about 11 years after living in Chicago for 26 years.
She started working for the Palm Coast Arts Foundation when she first arrived in Palm Coast and has been there ever since. Her position now, though, is an unpaid one after working as an employee until Covid hit.
As with everything else, Covid had a severe effect on the PCAF’s funding and eventually there was no money left for her salary. So she decided to keep working as a volunteer because, as she put it, “I believed so much in what we were doing.”
The PCAF was certainly dear to her heart and it was in may ways an extension of the job she held for 26 years in Chicago as the special assistant to the director of the Art Institute of Chicago’s art school.
She went to the Art Institute after a career in higher education in Springfield, Illinois and apparently got smitten by the atmosphere of the museum as well as the educational aspects of the art school. Her education experience also helped her to realize what it takes to become an artist, furthering broadening her experience and preparing her to work with artists even more closely.
She located the PCAF while still in Chicago and wrote to then-director Sam Percovic and by mutual agreement she became first a trustee of the organization and then the executive director from 2015 onwards.
During these years the PCAF built a stage for performances on land in the city center area in partnership with the city and held outdoor performances. Covid closed down most of the group’s activities and funding dried up, resulting in Nancy working as a volunteer in the same capacity as before, a situation that exists to this day.
There are too many things left for her to do and she’s now doing her job out of a sense of dedication and a belief that her role is an important one in shaping the course of Palm Coast’s future development.
— John Williams
