Meet Abby

As the Collective’s development director, Abby practices black belt-level gratitude. She spends her days activating members of the community who want to support Treetops financially, coordinating fundraising events, and saying thank you to the many people who make our work possible. Her mission is to connect each of our supporters with Treetops activities that match their personal passions. “My favorite part of fundraising,” she says, “is hearing the stories that brought people to the point of being passionate about making our community more welcoming.”

Abby graduated from Calvin University in 2016 (before it was "University"!) with a degree in International Development Studies and a passion for working behind the scenes in nonprofit organizations to help them function more effectively. In 2022, Abby received a Masters of Public Administration from Grand Valley State University with a concentration in Nonprofit Management and Leadership.

Spending a semester in Ghana, and especially her internship in a domestic violence shelter, gave Abby a taste of profound welcome, but she’s really been living it her whole life. “My family was always intentional about inviting people in,” she says. “We usually had college students or family friends living in our basement and had a ‘community meal’ once a week. My parents showed my brothers and me what it looks like to invite people into your life just as it is.” 

Abby spends a lot of her free time at the beck and call of Luna the Labradoodle, and drinks at least two cups of tea a day. Blow-your-mind random fact about her? Her great-great-grandfather had 7 wives and 63 children.