KAREN WILLIAMS: Pooler Councilwoman Has a Heart for Community Service
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www.PoolerMagazine.com | November/December 2022
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n a recent morning in October, we caught up with Councilwoman Karen Williams who was doing what she does best–making connections to serve others. On this particular day, she was chatting about volunteering to help 21 students from New Hampstead High School in Bloomingdale to work with the elderly residents who live in Pinewood Village, a 125-home senior housing community in Pooler. The volunteer group is helping the seniors go through their storage areas and haul away junk and trash that won’t fit in their trash receptacles. The Councilwoman is gung ho. She’s got her husband’s truck and she’s raring to go. “These seniors don’t have trucks and they cannot transport the items to the dump,” she explains. “And who else is going to help them if we don’t?” she asks. In her third year of her first term as a member of Pooler’s City Council, Williams brings that same heart for service to the city. Growing up, her dad was in the Air Force, which took the family to many cities before he retired in Tampa, Florida. It was there in high school where she met her future husband who would join the Army. She spent more than three decades as an Army wife living all over the United States and abroad. “I’ve lived in large cities, small cities and overseas for seven years. It was in Huntsville, Alabama, when I worked for the Planning and Zoning department at age 25 when I got the bug for municipal government,” she says. Her husband’s career ultimately landed the family in Richmond Hill as he worked at Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart Army Base. The couple moved to Pooler in 2015. “I began attending the Planning and Zoning council meetings just to see how they do things here and I was hooked,” she says. She attended the meetings for four years because the city had just held an election. She was elected to the City Council in 2019. “I absolutely love what I do! I am a huge proponent of communication, so I listen because I think you can learn more by listening than talking. And I need to know what the residents feel. I may not agree with it, but I still need to hear everyone out,” she adds. The Councilwoman also has a keen interest using sociability to accomplish regional goals, increase diversity of businesses, keep a steady eye on the
