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July 25, 2016 40 Under Forty 2016

Dave Ambrose

Dave Ambrose Dave Ambrose
Dave Ambrose at Hartford City Mission's winter retreat earlier this year. Dave Ambrose at Hartford City Mission's winter retreat earlier this year.
Dave Ambrose in front of his church, Glory Chapel International Cathedral. Dave Ambrose in front of his church, Glory Chapel International Cathedral. He grew up in the church as a son of a pastor. He later worked for a church before joining Hartford City Mission.

Age: 35

Company: Hartford City Mission

Title: Development Director

Town where I live: Hartford

Town where I work: Hartford

College: Gordon College

Q&A:

What do you do and what are your goals in your current job? I'm the development director at Hartford City Mission, a faith-based nonprofit serving north Hartford. I help connect volunteers and funders who support our programs, which seek to empower children and young people to become strong transformational leaders.

What are your goals for your community involvement? As someone who is relatively new to my community I seek to listen and learn first. I desire to actively join the great leaders already present in our community serving where they best think my gifts fit. I do aspire to be elected to the board of education.

What's your biggest passion? I seek to serve my God and his city. In Jeremiah 29 the Lord says, 'Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into. … Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.'

What are your future aspirations? Years of building new magnet schools and busing our children to the suburbs have severely broken down one of the traditional institutions that builds community, neighborhood schools. I aspire to work with local churches and Hartford Public Schools to support north Hartford's neighborhood schools creating a stronger more tightly knit community.

What needs to happen for Hartford to become a more vibrant city where people work, live and play? More of our best and brightest emerging leaders need to see success from the community perspective instead of an individual perspective. As long as success in our under-resourced neighborhoods is defined by getting out of the city we will continue to have a leadership drain. More emerging leaders must stop leaving our communities behind and instead choose to return to the community after college to be part of the solution not perpetuate the problem.

List four reasons why you deserve to be a 40 Under Forty:

Served as the volunteer director of The Hartford Project (THP) for four summers overseeing its move from one to three weeks each summer and the hiring of THP's first organizational development assistant.

Was hired as Hartford City Mission's first implementation director overseeing the opening of HCM's third after-school site and the move of the original site into a neighborhood church.

Serves as vice chair of the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Revitalization Zone.

Served as a parent member of R.J. Kinsella Magnet School of the Performing Arts' School Governance Council (SGC) and now as a community member of Simpson-Waverly's SGC.

Time Tested:

What personal possession in your life has withstood the test of time? My Bible

Twenty years ago, what did you envision as your future profession? A teacher

Who do you consider your mentor? Andre Riendeau, Lead Pastor, Wintonbury Church

See the complete list of Forty Under 40 Winners for 2016! 

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