Columbus Altrusans Michele Ackerman and Jill DeVore

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Michele Ackerman

Michele Ackerman has many interesting facets.

She grew up on a dairy farm, graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in agricultural communications in 1986 and has a long career in the dairy industry.

The past eight years, she has worked for the American Jersey Cattle Association (AJCA), where she writes feature articles for the Jersey Journal, a monthly trade magazine, and develops and manages websites for Jersey dairy farmers.

Michele redesigned the Altrusa Columbus website in 2010, the year she became a member of the organization. This seemed like a natural way for her to contribute to the club since she does this kind of work for the AJCA. She continues to perform webmaster duties for the site and also sits on the Altrusa board and serves on its communications committee.

In addition to being passionate about cows, Michele is dedicated to art. Fifteen years ago, she left a position with the Holstein Association in Vermont to attend the art school at the University of Hartford on a merit scholarship. She then became a self-employed illustrator, creating images for scrapbooking materials, greeting cards, children’s books and other gift items.

Even now, Michele’s dream job would be to return to the field of illustration. “Drawing and creating are just my thing,” she stated with emotion.

Though she currently paints with watercolors, she would like to add oils to her palette and eventually branch out into sculpture. She took an oil-painting class at the Columbus College of Art and Design last winter and plans to take a bronze-casting class at the Cultural Arts Center this winter. On an aside, Altrusa toured this amazing facility as part of its regular club meeting in June 2011.

Michele uses her creative flare in another passion—gardening. She enjoys learning about plants and then placing them in pleasing arrangements in her garden. In her flower and vegetable gardens are nearly 250 varieties of annuals and perennials. She and Cari Wolfe, a coworker at the AJCA and her Altrusan sponsor, share two plots in the Reynoldsburg Community Garden.

Also enjoying residence in Michele and her boyfriend Roger’s beautiful gardens are four chickens, from which they collect brown and turquoise eggs.

Jill DeVore

Jill DeVore joined Altrusa Columbus in 2010 to meet new people. It was a good fit since she was relatively new to the area and liked helping with good causes. She currently sits on the board and serves on the organization’s communications, fundraising and service committees.

Jill is known to Altrusans not only as a peer, but also for her association with Medicine for Mali (MFM), one of the projects funded by Altrusa Columbus.

MFM was established by her late husband, Dr. Stephen DeVore, after he and Jill returned from a visit to the country where their daughter, Elise, was doing medical work. Elise told her parents the villagers had few medical supplies and no means of paying for them. Among the requests she made for their very first visit, “Dad, can you bring medicine?”

“Steve got so excited about the whole thing,” recalled Jill. “After we got back, he started collecting medical supplies all over again with the goal of taking them to Mali.”

MFM was organized as a nonprofit charitable organization in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2000. Over the years, MFM has provided life-saving medical services, development aid, public health services and education opportunities for a remote community of 8,000 Malians living in one of the world’s poorest countries.


Jill and Dr. Laura with a traditional birth attendant in Mali.		Jill reading with a first-grader in her native Bambara.

Jill took over operation of MFM in 2008 upon Steve’s passing. Today, she gets help from a team of volunteers and the organization’s president, Dave Merschman, and its medical team leader, Laura Delaney.

In addition to the growth and success of MFM, Jill is proud of and thankful for her four children—Elise, Laura, Christian and Jay—and their families. Both Elise and Jay are now living in the Columbus area as well and she thoroughly enjoys the role of babysitter to her two grandsons several times a week.

When she’s not helping others, Jill likes to read, listen to music and spend time outdoors hiking, camping and riding bikes. In addition to 20-plus trips to Mali, she has traveled to several other countries in Africa and Europe, to Mexico and, most recently, to Cambodia.

Jill graduated from Indiana University with a master’s degree in education. She was a stay-at-home mother while her children were at home and then returned to teaching in 1986. She retired from the occupation in 2008.

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