A heartfelt thank you today from the staff and board of Free the Slaves to longtime friend, director and volunteer Helen Armstrong. She retired from the board over the weekend after six years of service.
Helen has been a highly valued member of the FTS team for many years beyond her board service. In his tribute to Helen, Free the Slaves Executive Director Maurice Middleberg noted that she has been “essential to sustaining the moral core of Free the Slaves” because “your voice was there to remind us that, amidst the press and tumult of managing an organization, the ethical parameters and purposes of our work must remain uppermost.”
In her farewell to the staff Friday, Helen noted that her Free the Slaves manual on promising practices in the rehabilitation of freed slaves, Rebuilding Lives, is the best thing she’s written in a long and distinguished career in international development.
Although Helen won’t be as active in the Free the Slaves family, she noted in her farewell that “I’m with you in spirit 100 percent!”