Tuesday's Speaker Bio Below:

Dr. Sherri Kirkpatrick. During her sixteen-year tenure as the Dean of Nursing at Graceland University, just a few hundred yards on Truman Road from where our Rotary club meets, Sherri initiated a nation-wide distance learning RN-BSN program that was the first of its kind in the U.S.  Dr. Kirkpatrick frequently traveled with her husband and trained health workers in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Africa and Asia.

In 2009, Sherri and her husband, Jac, co-founded HealthEd Connect, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of empowering women and children through evidence-based health, education, and advocacy programs.  Health workers supported by HealthEd Connect have delivered thousands of babies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, provided well-baby and prenatal care to villages in Malawi, and served as front-line health care workers in the recent earthquake disaster in Nepal.  Programs in Zambia have included the establishment of schools to provide affordable education for over 900 orphans and vulnerable children.  Sherri has served as a consultant to the Soviet Children’s Fund, been selected as a World of Children honoree, and received the Kansas City chapter United Nations World Citizen of the Year award.