Portia Dyrenforth is a teacher, but is happy to be learning a lot about our community through her involvement with Impact 100!
Tell us a little about yourself personally and professionally.
For the last 8 years, I have mostly been a stay-at-home parent to my two sons. We moved back to Cincinnati to live close to my parents and ended up just down the street from where I grew up in Clifton. Before that, I taught at a small liberal arts college in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. I am trained as a Social and Personality Psychologist, so I study how personality traits, emotions and relationships influence one another. As my kids are now in school full time (fingers crossed during these pandemic times), I am doing a little adjunct teaching at Cincinnati State and am beginning to explore my volunteer and professional interests again.
What excites you about being an Impact 100 member?
I really like how Impact 100 allows me to be as hands-on and involved as I want to be. I love getting to read the proposals and getting a unique window into the organizations and their missions as they move through the process. In just a few rounds of serving on Focus Area Committees, I have learned a lot about the strengths and challenges of our community. I also love the idea that together with other women, I can be a small part of helping make some of these projects happen.
Could you provide a brief description of your favorite Impact 100 moment or experience?
A favorite Impact 100 moment was last summer while I was on vacation. The Next Step Awards committee was getting ready to finalize our list of winners during a Zoom meeting. (Next Step Awards were done to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Impact 100 Cincinnati.) As I reviewed my notes while sitting in our rental house, I realized that I felt great about every single one of the semi-finalists and the potential good their projects could do. Although I wished we could fund all of the proposals, it was such a gratifying moment to realize that no matter which of the final proposals were selected, I was confident that Impact 100’s smaller grants initiative was going to make a contribution.