Printer Friendly Version - Kate Heiser: Literacy Volunteer

While she has been an unopposable force in bringing the third annual Literacy Volunteers of the Valley Shore 5K Run/Walk and Backward Mile into being, on race day Kate Heiser will scale back on her organizing efforts, as the event coincides with her third child's due date.

At the moment, even though she is on the race organizing committee, Kate Heiser has a competing commitment on Saturday,

April 10, the date for the April Fools 5K Run/Walk and Backward Mile to benefit the Literacy Volunteers of the Valley Shore (LVVS). That happens to be the date when her third child is due.

This is the third year for the event and Tom Houpert, chairman of the board of LVVS, has a personal goal. He has been practicing for the one-mile backward race, determined to better his second-to-last-place finish of last year. Training has had its amusing moments, including the time two young children saw him and began to run backwards with him. He likes his chances this year unless, as happened once before, the winner of New York's Central Park Backwards Race enters the Essex Race.

Kate has been in charge of Internet publicity on the upcoming race. She also has another essential function: to procure the lollipops for the children participating in the six and under lollipop run. It took Kate more than a pro forma stop at the candy store to find what she wanted, but she managed to locate all-natural lollipops.

LVVS provides tutoring to adults at no cost with basic reading skills or with English as a Second Language. For students, the private, one-on-one sessions are free. According to Director Mary Ellen Jewett, the organization helps some 200 people a year, serving an area that includes Chester, Clinton, Deep River, Essex, Guilford, Killingworth, Lyme, Madison, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, and Westbrook.

Kate got involved with LVVS when she saw a brochure about the organization in a doctor's office.

With her husband Ted, an Essex native and a graduate of Valley Regional High School, Kate has just opened law offices in Essex. The couple met when both were working at a firm in New Jersey, where Kate grew up.

Kate's path to law school was an unconventional one. After high school, she didn't go straight to college. She joined the Marines and was trained to do electrical work on KC 130 aircraft.

"I wasn't ready for college and it turned out to be a great move. When I finally did go to college, I was very mature. I got straight As," she says.

When she left the military, Kate put herself through Southeastern Louisiana College, explaining she chose Louisiana because she had a sister who lived there and costs were much lower than in New Jersey. She returned to New Jersey for law school, graduating from Rutgers School of Law in Newark.

When Kate and Ted bought their first house in Chester, law was put on hold for renovation.

From house renovation, Kate found her next job was also not a legal one: motherhood. The Heisers have two children, Genevieve, 4, and Finn, 2. Then, just as she found herself ready to buy new business suits to go back to law practice, Kate found she was pregnant with a third child.

She had already hired an au pair to help with the children, looking forward to returning to work on a part-time basis, which she still intends to do with one change: the new baby will come with her to the office. Kate says what she particularly likes about law is the research and the writing.

In addition to the LVVS, Kate has joined the local chapter of Holistic Moms Network, a national group that encourages an organic approach to living, including eating chemical- and pesticide-free food and learning about various parenting and heath care options. She's careful about her own children's diet, while trying to find substitutes for things she doesn't want them eating.

Kate used to run regularly with a baby jogger and recently, though pregnant, she walked six miles. She doesn't plan to walk that far at the LVVS event, with her upcoming delivery in mind, but she says she might try some walking. Her reason is simple.