Meet Julia Roundtree Livingston | Executive Director, wife, mother, committed Macon County community member

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Roundtree Livingston and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I do believe that for any measure of success, we must take risks. However, I also feel that I must evaluate many things when taking that risk: what are the benefits, what can we lose, are there long term effects to this risk (good or bad), how long should I commit to this risk before changing my direction, and more. While leading a non-profit organization, many of my risks are not financial risks, but that doesn’t minimize their impact on our organization. Because we depend so heavily on volunteers and community support, every decision, every risk is serious and can have lasting impact.

I would consider myself very calculated in both my life and my career. I typically think 10 steps ahead: if I do this, what will happen in return, and down the road. I’ve found this approach to be one that allows me the best chances at overall success and I always feel prepared for my next direction.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have a very interesting career development in that it has taken me across a few disciplines, but it has clearly allowed me to utilize past professional experiences. After college, I began my career as a college English instructor. I’ve taught college English at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, Florida State University, University of Illinois–Champaign, Urbana, and Richland Community College. I taught a myriad of English courses ranging from Intro to Composition, Humanities, American Literature, African American Literature, Grant Writing, Technical Writing, and more. I taught college students from many walks of life and at many different stages in their college careers. I truly enjoyed interacting with students who wanted to be in the continued education classroom and helping them to understand their thoughts as well as prepare them for many other college disciplines by learning to write effectively.

Once my husband and I began to have children, I decided to stay at home with our three children at different stages–first for two and half years with our daughter and then for three and a half years with our boys who were back to back fifteen months apart. In between my stay at home with our daughter and then with our boys, I did go back to teaching for four years. Once I sought to come back to the workforce after our boys, I felt that academic might not be the right fit for me, now a mom of three and a wife to a husband with a job which lacked flexibility. While staying at home, I was extremely involved in the Macon County community as an active volunteer. For 10 years, I organized a community effort to feed 4,000 families each year the week of Thanksgiving. The Judy Mason Thanksgiving Basket Project was a wonderful passion of mine during that time; through this effort, I raised roughly $100,000 each year and used those funds to purchase food to fill 4,000 boxes of food for local families. I also organized over 2,000 volunteers across 4 weeks time to fill the boxes and distribute them to over 50 local organizations who then passed out the food boxes. This work was fulfilling. I loved that my entire family was involved in the operation: my kiddos would come with me to prepare the warehouse, to receive food shipments, to meet volunteers. And, I also loved that the entire community could get involved in this effort to take care of our fellow community members who needed our help; volunteers came with their families including their children to learn a lesson in volunteerism. It was amazing.

This experience with volunteerism in the community, along with growing up with a family mission for service, made it an easy choice to come back to the workforce in the non-profit world. My first job back was as the Director of Development at Baby TALK, Inc. here in Decatur, IL. This job allowed me to combine my sense of loving my community, caring for families and children, and my education with writing. As the Director of Development, I sought funding for the non-profit through grant writing, engaging in community speaking events, creating materials to educate the community and garner support. While loving this role, it unfortunately ended due to a lack in state funding laying off and cutting many employees including myself. I was then exposed to Macon County CASA, a local non-profit which provides advocacy for local foster children who have been abused or neglected. I’ve now been with Macon County CASA for nearly 6 years, first as the Director of Development for 2 years and then as the Executive Director ever since. I truly love my work at CASA as I can see our work having immediate impacts on local foster children’s life stories. I get the opportunity to connect community members with worthwhile volunteer work and help them create long lasting relationships with local children who without this connection would likely experience even more trauma.

Like everyone, I’ve experienced my share of challenges professionally. But, with my personal mindset of hard work, dedication, loyalty, a refusal to lose, I’ve been able to push past these. I continue to teach my children that if you employ these attributes, then you provide yourself the best chances at success. These were lessons that my parents instilled in me.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh my goodness, we’d have so much fun! My family loves our Macon County community and I certainly feel that it has SO much to offer! We’d certainly hit up all the visiting spots (of course family friendly)–Scovill Zoo, Overlook Adventure, Children’s Museum of Illinois, downtown Decatur, Central Park, Giggles, the MidState Soccer fields. We’d visit many of our favorite food spots (the Livingstons are foodies so we have a lot of favorites 🙂 )–Sloan’s Calzones, Del’s Popcorn, 121 Coffee Run (Warrensburg), Decatur Coffee Connection, Coney McKane’s (the pie!!), Anna Thai, Sky City Grill. Honestly, you could make an entire month out of the places we’d want to take them here!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Shout out to my entire family for their unending support! My late mother, Janet Roundtree, father, Joe Roundtree, husband, Stan Livingston II, and three kiddos, Joella (15), Stanford III (9) and Silas (8).

Website: www.maconcountycasa.org

Facebook: Julia Roundtree Livingston/Macon County CASA–serving Macon & DeWitt Counties