
March is National Social Work Month: Katie Zimpfer
Katie Zimpfer chose Social work as ‘kind of a fluke.’ She was graduating from Chipola College and met with her Counselor about what she wanted to study when she attended FSU. She had no idea. The counselor suggested Social Work because she believed Katie would be great at it and the rest is history. In April, Katie will celebrate 54 years as a social worker!
Katie’s role with NWF Health is the Transition Assistant for C1. Katie enjoys supporting and mentoring her staff and encouraging them to do their best and reach their full potential. She motivates the team by encouraging them and giving them the opportunity to be creative within those parameters. “It’s such a joy for me to see so many young folks I have worked with doing great jobs all across the state. I’d like to think I had a small part in that. It makes me smile BIG!”
When Katie isn’t working, you can find her spending time with her family or reading. Her favorite quote is an Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered in Sorbonne, in Paris France in 1910. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of the deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither victory nor defeat.”
Katie Zimpfer is a wonderful asset to NWF Health. Her advice for new social workers: “You should be proud of the profession and do your best at what you do. Then if social work is not your thing…find something that is.”