Karen Olson

She attended public school in Darien and graduated from Lasell College in Auburndale, Massachusetts, where she studied Business Administration.

After college, Olson spent seven years in marketing, the last three at Warner-Lambert in Morris Plains, New Jersey.

She developed promotional campaigns for consumer products such as Schick razors, Listermint mouthwash, and Lubriderm lotion.

Rushing by Grand Central Station in Manhattan to a business meeting in 1982, Olson noticed a homeless woman she'd passed before.

Olson and her two young sons began frequent trips to New York to hand out sandwiches to the homeless.

“For a couple of years,” Olson said, “every other Sunday, we would go in armed with sandwiches and got to know (homeless) people by name.”[1] When Olson learned there were hundreds of homeless people, including families, in her home community of Union County, New Jersey, she turned to the religious community for help.

[2] Olson began an initiative to persuade religious communities across the country to provide homeless families with shelter, meals and help.

[3][4] Olson retired from leadership of Family Promise in January 2016, remaining as president emeritus.

She continued to meet with affiliate leadership nationally and volunteers locally with the Union County program.

She also gives talks about homelessness, poverty, and affordable housing at Family Promise locations, universities, schools, corporations, and businesses.

She has been profiled by CBS News,[5] published in The Huffington Post,[6] and she is featured in the book Courage is Contagious: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things to Change the Face of America, written in 1999 by Ohio Congressman John Kasich.

"A conversation with national Family Promise founder Karen Olson on her vision for fighting homelessness.” Alabama Media Group.