A life of purpose

After years of working in marketing, Laura (Angst) Gartin felt like she needed “more purpose” in her life and sought out to create a non-profit agency that would help those in the community who weren’t being helped by existing government programs and charities, including local foster families. With that goal in mind, Gartin, her parents, Pastor John and Laquita Angst, and sister Sarah created Live 2 Give Hope in 2017. The organization soon branched out from its initial goal to provide other services to the community, including the Fostering Hope Closet program, which helps out local foster families. The program is over seen by Gartin, who acts as program director, her mother, who is the executive director and a board of 10 people. Gartin graduated from Lebanon High School in 2002 and left for Missouri State University where she would earn an undergraduate degree in marketing and then a master’s degree in supply chain management. She spent the next ten years working in marketing for Fortune 5oo companies in Springfield and eventually out of state. Gartin admitted that she needed a change. For more on this story see Saturday's LCR.