The League of Women Voters, Whitewater Area presented the 2019 Making Democracy Work Award to Kristine Zaballos, resident of Whitewater and Seattle. Through her work as a founding board member of the Downtown Whitewater, Inc., she was instrumental in identifying “a little spark” in the development of the Tuesday evening Whitewater City Market, which will be celebrating its fifth anniversary next season. Along with her interest in creating The Community Space for area residents to find clothing, household supplies and food, she has been involved in the Grocery Coop development. The overarching goal of these efforts is to achieve a community vital and welcoming to current and future residents.

In Kristine’s acceptance speech, she mentioned four guiding principles that have helped her since she began to work on community projects: show up, tell the truth, look at where there is heart and meaning in addition to positive energy and finally, let go. These are deceptively simple, yet nuanced by further explanation in her acceptance speech. For example, she said her grandfather’s decision to defer plans for a new location of his church reflected the need at times to let go. Others may have better ideas.

League member Susan Crone gave an overview of Kristine’s many accomplishments as a master consensus builder who listens to what is said and also for what hasn’t been mentioned. Kristine uses the guiding principles of a democracy by holding faith in the majority and respecting the opinions of everyone.

View the entire award presentation recording here.