The People In Our Neighborhood: Susan Kanoff

Who here remembers the song People In Your Neighborhood?  Many may see this Sesame Street classic may be nothing more than a cute jingle for preschool aged children to zone out to during their Saturday morning cartoon marathon.  But how well do you really know the people that you pass by everyday?  I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Susan Kanoff who has been a driving force in our community in so many ways.

For over 13 years , Susan has been running The Family Self-Sufficiency Program at The North Andover Housing Authority located right on Waverly Road. This empowering 5 year program promotes employment and increased assets for low-income families receiving HCV Section 8 housing assistance and is one of the few federally supported asset building programs in existance. Because Susan works personally with the 25-30 families (most living in North Andover and The Merrimack Valley),  the program is nothing short of a unique and intense individual approach to connect families with the services and resources needed to obtain work that pays a living wage. Susan increases her efforts to support the families even more-so by working closely with the community to make sure her clients have access to job training, financial literacy, education, child-care, transportation and counseling.

Susan is also the woman behind A Great New Look, offering a variety of wardrobe styling services to help local area woman to dress for success.  Offering everything from closet re-vamps and shopping trips to in-house fashion clinics, it is Susan's passion to help people and her innate ability to see the beauty in those around her that is the foundation for her success.  This is abundantly apparent by her latest adventure Project Makeover.  About a year ago, Susan and Grace Quintal (Grace Professional Cosmetics) created Project Makeover as a way to use their talents to give back to the much deserving military women in MA and NH.  In summary, Project Makeover consists of 40 hours of services and more than $4,000 of clothes....I'll wait while the ladies in the crowd take a moment to revel in the thought.

Susan will also be teaming up with event planner Monique Johnson for the second annual Swap Soiree, a woman's clothing and accessory swap, this coming November 3rd at Chester's in Lawrence.  Woman are encouraged to bring clothes the no longer wear and participate in a night of swapping and socializing to benefit the YWCA of Greater Lawrence and their numerous programs to help area women - in particular battered women and their children.  As Susan says, "As a wardrobe stylist, I encourage my clients to get rid of the pieces that they're no longer wearing, so I thought that a large scale swap would be an economical & fun way to move out the old clothes and bring in the new! After all, one woman's discard is another woman's treasure!"

It is no surprise that Susan has been recognized by the State of Massachusetts with an official citation for her work, or that she has received several awards for her accomplishments from state and federal organizations, or that she received The Tribute to Women Award from the YWCA of Greater Lawrence.  The way Susan has integrated her love for her work and her talents with fashion is an inspiration and will be my motivation to reach further out into the community.

"We believe in the power of gratitude and strive to help women build a strong foundation on which to inspire life-long success"

Connect With Susan on Facebook, Twitter and Blogger!