“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in”. ~Author Unknown
This quote captures the core “why” behind Marianna Sennour’s dedication to community service. She truly believes that citizens are the strength of any community and that they can have the biggest impact through volunteering their time and talents. The community Marianna wants to live in values the need for providing assistance to neighbors in need, which is why All Community Outreach is dear to her heart. ACO is where she first began her community service journey starting as a food pantry volunteer in 2014, joining the
Development Council in 2016 and appointment to the Board of Directors in March of 2020, where she continues to serve. She is passionate about ACO’s mission of “preventing homelessness and hunger while helping clients build financial stability”, recognizing that we are all potentially one crisis away from needing the services of an organization like ACO.
The community Marianna wants to live in values the arts and literacy, so she has served in various capacities with Friends of the Allen Public Library and the Allen Arts Alliance. She currently serves on the City of Allen Public Art Committee.
The community Marianna wants to live in values public education. Her contribution to helping build a strong community in this area includes past participation on AISD Project Kids committees and the SOAR 2030 community strategic planning committee.
And, finally, the community Marianna wants to live in sees the strength in our differences. She works to bring people together across these differences through a fledgling community interfaith initiative and as co-organizer of the 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Appreciation Day Service.
Marianna and her husband, Youcef, have two Allen High School graduates, a son, Amin, who now lives in Boston working as a software engineer and a daughter, Leila, who is an accounting major at the University of Iowa. When she is not volunteering Marianna enjoys yoga, reading, jigsaw puzzles, attending community theater with her husband and hanging out with her cat
Zoe.
“Volunteering is at the very core of being a human. No one has made it through
life without someone else’s help.” – Heather French Henry