Lawrence Leader Martha Velez Serves the Community With Her Boots on the Ground

Martha Velez remembers the afternoon of September 13, 2018, as though it were yesterday. One minute she was on her way home from work, and the next she was hurriedly putting on leggings and sneakers to race out the door and set up an emergency shelter for Lawrence residents displaced by the Columbia Gas explosions. The fact that she’d never had to set up a shelter before was nearly irrelevant. “From then on, we just did what we needed to do,” she says. “Hands on” leadership is more than just a buzzword for Velez, director of health and human services for the city of Lawrence. Everything about her work is grassro

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Lawrence Leader Martha Velez Serves the Community With Her Boots on the Ground

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