Sara McArdle

Sara McArdle

Sara McArdle is designing a better, peaceful community

  • The Herald Business Journal
  • Tuesday, April 12, 2016 4:05pm
  • Business

On April 21, The Herald Business Journal will announce the 2016 recipient of the Emerging Leaders Award. This week and next, we are profiling 12 finalists, who were chosen by a panel of judges from among dozens of nominees.

Sara McArdle believes that we are all deeply connected and the smallest of our actions ripple out to impact others all around us.

The senior graphic designer with United Way of Snohomish County has volunteered hundreds of hours every year attempting to make the world a better place.

She has worked since last year with Freedom Project Seattle, assisting inmates at Monroe Correctional Complex with nonviolent communication.

She also works with Seattle Restorative Justice helping communities from Snohomish County south to Seattle serving on-call to help facilitate reconciliation between people in conflict.

She also serves on the board of directors for Kids4Peace Seattle, an interfaith group that works to bring together Jewish, Christian and Muslum youths for after-school activities, weekend events and international summer camps.

In that same vein, McArdle has served as a lead fundraiser on a project to help bring teams of four Israelis and four Palestinians to the Vashon Island Nonviolent Communication Family Camp.

She and her team raised $15,000 in just two months, and succeeded in bringing over all eight. Those people are now teaching what they learned at a class series at universities and community centers in Israel.

From 2001 to 2003, McArdle worked full-time as a fundraiser and community organizer to permanently preserve 106,000 acres of public land near Index. In 2008, the land was federally designated as the Wild Sky Wilderness by Congress and President George W. Bush.

During the last 12 years, she’s worked for the United Way creating graphics and marketing material to support the nonprofit.

Through her own business, Sara McArdle Design, she’s illustrated the marketing materials for The Penn Cove MusselFest in Coupeville for the past seven years, illustrating a different mermaid each year.

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