Julie Zelle

Talk a while with Julie Zelle about her volunteerism, and you’re likely to hear this phrase repeatedly. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, Zelle was ordained as a United Church of Christ minister in 1989 and pursued a career in pastoral counseling. Her primary interest was and is in children’s hospice care, but many experiences in her early ministry offered insight into the nature of suffering and healing.

“I was in a locked psychiatric ward doing my training,” she says, “and I just felt at home. Here are people who are entirely broken, entirely vulnerable—and they’re worthy. I mean, we’re all, ultimately, vulnerable.”

One thing led to another, and Zelle returned home to the Twin Cities, where she became heavily involved in a campaign to found Deva House, a unique St. Paul children’s hospice facility. Deva House never opened, but the work of Zelle and other supporters led to improved hospice programs at local children’s hospitals. Zelle began volunteering and fundraising for Abbott Northwestern’s Institute for Health and Healing and New Brighton’s United Theological Seminary (“a gem of a school”). She also took a more active role as a trustee for the Marbrook Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by her grandparents.

In 2004, through a ministerial connection with Reverend Michael O’Connell, Zelle became aware of the Jeremiah Program, which he had founded. She visited the organization, which provides housing and counseling to low-income single mothers, and was asked to join the steering committee for its St. Paul campus. She turned it down. But then, she says, for three weeks afterward, she couldn’t get the place out of her mind. She joined the committee, and one thing led to another. Soon she was also volunteering in the child-care center and setting new fundraising records as chair of the group’s annual Bullfrog Bash fund-raiser.

Zelle’s further pursuits include board and fundraising work for Project Success, VocalEssence, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (as a member of the developmental committee, she helped get Robert Redford as speaker for the group’s 2004 fundraiser), and Xelias Aerial Arts Studio, where her son Nick is an active pupil.

Expect these things to lead to others.