Susan May papers

Born in New Hampshire in 1941, Susan May earned her bachelor's degree in French and English at the University of California at Berkeley (1964) and her masters in English at Ball State University (1971). She taught English, French, and journalism at public high schools in Ohio and Indiana before moving to Atlanta, where she became the Resource Coordinator at the Young Women's Christian Association Women's Center. It was while she worked at the YWCA (1975-1982) that she established the Council on Battered Women, and, as President of the Board and then Director, she nurtured a small task force to become a broadly-based community organization and built a comprehensive program of crisis line, shelter, children's program, and educational services to aid 4,000 battered women a year. From 1982-1990, she was a consultant to non-profit organizations, providing fundraising and organizational training to nonprofit organizations, and from 1990-1996, she served as Executive director for Project Interconnections, Inc., a housing developer for nonprofit organizations whose purpose is to develop permanent housing with on-site support for homeless, mentally ill adults in Metro Atlanta. Diagnosed with lymphoma in 1997, Susan took time off for treatment and recovery. Since that time, Susan has served as President of Fugees Family, Inc., an organization that helps child survivors of war. For many years, she was actively involved with the Finance Committee for the Atlanta Friends Meeting.