Occupation: I work for The Taunton Press. Right now I am a digital advertising operations specialist, but I have done a number of things there over the last eight years. With my nonprofit background, I had a strange mix of skills and they had a job that had a strange mix of needs. It started as just a temporary job, a four-week assignment. I was lucky enough to land that and lucky enough that after all these years they kept finding work. I'm glad to be with them permanently as of a month ago, and I'm really glad for the experiences I've had.

Family: I have three kids. Ellie, who's 18, graduated from Newtown High School last year. She's on a gap year and is going to volunteer in Ukraine for a couple months. She'll be starting Champlain College up in Burlington, Vt., in September. Tallie, who's 17, is a junior at Newtown High School. She also attends the magnet school in New Haven for the arts; she's a dancer. Bear is 12, and he's a seventh grader at the middle school. My husband, Andri, works for IBM.

Pets: My kids like to say they have 60,000 pets in the backyard, because we have a colony of honeybees. We are part of the Wannabees Family Beekeeping Club. Bear has been doing it for the past four years, and our first colony came from the club. Now he has the Bubba Bear Bee Company.

How long have you lived in Newtown? We moved here in August of 2004. We were transferred from the Boston area right before I gave birth to Bear.

What do you like to do in your free time? My hobby has been genealogy for a long time. I was involved for a while with the genealogy club in town. Also, Bear is a Sandy Hook survivor and after that my kids found healing in activism. I've never been a particularly politically active person, but I became very active with the teens in town in helping them find their voice and use it. For the past couple years, I've done things like take groups of kids to [Washington] DC for lobbying. I'm so inspired with how sure they are that they can make this world a place they want to live.

Do you have a favorite author? There's a woman, Paullina Simons, who's written specifically about Leningrad, which is now St Petersburg, in such wonderful detail. She does such a good job of describing the cities and the life back then.

What is your favorite travel destination? Tallie and I are going to go to Ukraine in April to visit Ellie. We've gone back to Ukraine and Russia a number of times and still have family there. I would love to go to Ireland, too, because my family history is from there.

What is the best part about Newtown? I grew up in northern Virginia in a place call Reston and there are things about Newtown that remind me of home. There's that sense of community.

Who has been the greatest influence in your life? It's a combination of the great teachers I had, the great parents I have, and the people who mentored me along the way. They have encouraged me to try new things and know that failure is not a bad thing.

If you could spend the day with one person, who would you choose and why? Anyone of my immigrant ancestors. When I'm having a hard time, I think back to the various stories about their lives and the true tribulations and obstacles that they had. When I'm having a bad day it brings perspective. It would be really inspiring to hear to details from them and know what it took to get through the scary unknowns and obstacles of life.

Who is your favorite musical artist? I tend to like acoustic folky stuff and music that tells a story. I like Rosie Thomas; she's quirky and interesting.

We naturally fear things and make our own obstacles, so just try it. What do you have to lose?

What is the greatest piece of advice you have ever been given?