Nancy Timm
Nancy Timm was born in New Orleans in 1956 and has deep family roots in the city. In 1974, Nancy graduated from Isidore Newman School and earned her MSW from Tulane University in 1981. She works as a clinical social worker. She and her husband, Stephen, a business owner, have three grown kids. Nancy has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, Jewish Family Service, Anti-Defamation League, and the Touro Infirmary Foundation.
Nancy talks about her family and their roots in New Orleans, growing up in the city, and her spiritual life and relationship with Judaism. She details her involvement in various Jewish and community organizations and Hurricane Katrina's disruption of these activities. Nancy describes the storm's aftermath, evacuating first to Pensacola and then Fort Collins, Colorado. Her daughter had to leave with the clothes on her back to start her first year at Mount Holyoke College. Nancy speaks to adolescents' challenges, and the unique impact Katrina had on young people. Hurricane Katrina changed the nature of Nancy's work; she has seen a lot more divorce, separation, and substance use in patients since the storm. Before Katrina, Nancy worked as a counselor at a private girls' school. After, she went into private practice with a group of colleagues. Nancy also discusses her spiritual life. She said that she has always expressed her Judaism through activism, but as Nancy gets older, she has gotten more involved in Judaism's ritual and spiritual side.