On Friday afternoons, Kimmie Cameron brings an infectious, positive energy to the front desk. She started volunteering with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in December of 2024 and has since been a dedicated volunteer at the Malone Center, filling the halls with wonderful conversation and laughter. While talking to her, it became obvious that she has always been deeply curious and caring about her community, even as a working professional.
Kimmie has worn many hats in her professional career. She has been a writer, an editor, an email administrator, and a self-taught software engineer. While she has had many inspirations for writing, she has a deep love for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Lewis Carroll’s 1886 novel that inspired the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland. Kimmie’s fascination with the story and its origins runs so deep that in college, she would choose classes that she knew she could find a way to write about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and even pursued a graduate degree so that she could write about it more. Kimmie passionately discusses the literary significance, the mathematical aspects, and the historical context of the Lewis Carroll’s work. She even got to travel to London while she was in her twenties and visited a shop that appears in the books! While in her career as a writer and editor, she decided to teach herself computer science when she saw computers going unused in her organization. She had free time and decided to learn all that she could about the computers’ software and hardware. Her curiosity brought a new skill and expanded her career in exciting ways.
After Kimmie retired, she found herself wanting to learn more. She went to cooking classes to learn how to cook and picked up hobbies like knitting and sewing. The activity that seemed to have stuck the most was the privilege of volunteering. She first started volunteering in Austin, Texas and Boulder, Colorado at her local library. The special memory that she shared about some of her first times volunteering was helping at the Jaipur Literature Festival, a local edition of an Indian literary show. Now that she is living in Cary, she consistently volunteers with around 6 different organizations like A Place at the Table and even GalaxyCon over the summer. Even with all her commitments, she made time almost every Friday afternoon to help the Food Shuttle. Kimmie loves to feed others and said that she found the Food Shuttle’s work intensely meaningful and finds it important to be around people who work to help others. She loved the community and the environment of the Food Shutte, especially during a time where current events and the news can make the world a depressing place. During these times, she stressed the importance of being around people who want to help their neighbors. While she says that the staff at the Food Shuttle motivates her, it’s clear that she has intrinsic motivation to help others. Kimmie is a natural caretaker who treats community members as if they are her own children. She strives to help build a society that respects and cares for others and says that she is happy to be privileged enough to volunteer. While she won’t be able to help as much with the Food Shuttle because of her other engagements, we are happy to see that she continues to build a society free of hunger and hate. We are grateful for all the time and energy she has dedicated to our cause.
Some fun facts about Kimmie
- Kimmie was at the opening night of David Bowie’s theatrical debut in The Elephant Man.
- Kimmie has been to 49 states!
- Kimmie has 8 siblings and is 7 of 9.