Back to Index     

Mary Louis LeHew grew up in a Louisville, Ky. family committed to community service. She recalls her grandmother and great aunt rolling bandages for relief efforts, delivering baskets of food to hungry families and collecting clothing to donate. Her mother, a widow, worked in the state insurance office so LeHew also received a first-hand look at the importance of having a satisfying career.

In the 37 years since LeHew first moved to Norfolk, she has planted her feet firmly in both the volunteer and career worlds. Since 1992 the former president of the Children’s Health System board and the Junior League of Norfolk and Virginia Beach has been president of The Planning Council. The 100-employee nonprofit agency plans, develops and manages human service programs throughout eastern and northern Virginia and in Maryland.

Through The Planning Council LeHew has worked to improve life for hungry, homeless, unemployed and medically uninsured people. LeHew’s broad background led to her appointment this year to the board of directors of The Norfolk Foundation. She replaced Jean C. Bruce, who had served 18 years on the board and was LeHew’s predecessor at The Planning Council.

“Mary Louis has a world of experience in community planning and has good executive qualities,” says Mike Hughes, president of the United Way of South Hampton Roads. “Her selection follows a consistent effort on the part of The Norfolk Foundation to bring in board members with expertise, which leads to good decisions.”

LeHew, a graduate of Catherine Spaulding College in Louisville, started her career as a history teacher. She stayed home while her children were young but began a tradition of volunteering that continues today. For 12 years she was on Norfolk’s Planning Commission. She chaired Norfolk’s Mary Louis LeHew grew up in a Louisville, Ky. family committed to community service. She recalls her grandmother and great aunt rolling bandages for relief efforts, delivering baskets of food to hungry families and collecting clothing to donate. Her mother, a widow, worked in the state insurance office so LeHew also received a first-hand look at the importance of having a satisfying career. Citizen Advisory Committee for Community Development Block Grants and the Mayor’s Task Force on the Homeless. She also served as vice-rector of the board of visitors of Eastern Virginia Medical School, chaired the board at the Barry Robinson Center, helped found the CIVIC leadership institute and served on the boards of the Norfolk Forum, Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School and Young Audiences of Virginia. Currently LeHew is a trustee of the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation and Westminster-Canterbury on Chesapeake Bay. She is president of the National Association of Planning Councils.

In 1982 after LeHew chaired a citizens advisory committee studying Norfolk’s human service issues, she joined the board of The Planning Council. In 1986 she stepped down from the board to take a part-time position at the council as a community planner. From there she moved to a full-time job and then the president’s position in 1992.

“Mary Louis has a love of the community,” says Connie Laws, who was executive director of The Planning Council when she hired LeHew. “She is very broad minded in her approach to this region and is exceptionally well organized and insightful.”

Laws recalls that when LeHew tackled sensitive community issues such as teen pregnancy “she was very diplomatic but wouldn’t give an inch. When she knows she is right she sticks with it.”

LeHew and her husband Willette live in Norfolk and between them have seven children and 12 grandchildren.

Back to Fall 2004 Newsletter Index