Karen Zalesky: A true tale of yin and yang

I’m very excited to announce that at next Thursday’s YWCA Tribute to Women Awards Luncheon, in Phoenix, Ariz., an Avnet employee, and friend of mine, Karen Zalesky, will be honored with an extremely prestigious award.

The annual award’s ceremony recognizes outstanding women in Maricopa County whose lives and accomplishments reflect the YWCA’s mission of empowering women and promoting diversity.  Karen will receive the Dorothy Willey Volunteer Award, the YWCA’s most prestigious award.  It is annually presented to the woman who most closely exemplifies the spirit of service and dedication to the YWCA and its principles.

In my opinion, what it does is exemplifies the spirit of a yin and yang approach to community outreach.  Instead of giving you Karen’s bio and telling you about all of her vast and impressive career accomplishments, let me just say that Karen is the reason that we have community relations here at Avnet.  It’s as simple as that.

This is an example of grass roots at its finest, the yin approach.  Long before there was an official community relations position at Avnet, Karen and a group of her peers decided to form an employee volunteerism committee.  They named it Avnet Cares.  How appropriate.  And how apropos that besides helping to form and also running this council, Karen says her reasons for doing so were not just to provide employees with a way to do community outreach, nor was her motivation just so the community would benefit either.  In the true spirit of being of service, Karen was doing this because it allowed her to learn about the opportunities to serve in the Valley and as a way for her to share her knowledge, expertise, compassion and financial support to various organizations.    That’s what I would call the trifecta.  Two weeks ago I talked about finding buried treasure along the two-fold path.  This week, I’m winning the trifecta by being lucky enough to work with someone like Karen.  Maybe I should by a lottery ticket next week.

One of Karen’s pet charities is HandsOn Greater Phoenix (formerly Make a Difference).  Wonderful organization.  Every spring they have a Serve-a-thon.  And every spring, Avnet sponsors their event and sends volunteers – it’s a very strategic organization for us to be involved with, something that is on my yang-like strategy.  However, the reason we stay so committed to this nonprofit  … it’s Karen.  Don’t get me wrong, I love this organization and love it that we stay involved.  However, I don’t have the bandwidth to support them.  Neither does Karen, really, but somehow she always makes the time.

Karen took a break from Avnet Cares but she’s back now, thank goodness.  And, even while on break, year after year, she took the responsibility of project manager for Avnet’s participation in the Serve-a-thon.  This is no small task, folks.  And, it’s a thankless job.  Let me tell you, it takes a special person to persevere like this. Me, I do a big project, I enjoy creating it, getting it off the ground and then I’d just as soon turn it over to someone else the next year.  I’m bored.  Ready to move on.  The yin in me likes to create.  Year two of an event is too much yang.

I so admire Karen’s dedication and passion.  She does a great job of combining the yin and the yang – she has what I would call an integrated spirit.  She does a fantastic job with the Serve-a-thon, while still holding down a full time job at Avnet.  It’s not like she has the words community relations in her title.  But she does have it in her heart.  Thank goodness.

Therein lies the beauty of grass roots and having the right employees involved in community outreach programs.  Therein lies the beauty of yin and yang.  It ain’t always about strategy.