Rebeca Pacheco is board chair of the Ozarks Riverways Foundation and serves on the board of the Ozark Foothills Regional Community Foundation
Rebeca Pacheco leads by serving rural Missouri’s people, places and natural spaces.
Rooted in Carter County, Pacheco is a board member of the Ozark Foothills Regional Community Foundation, the CFO affiliate serving Butler, Carter, Reynolds, Wayne and Ripley counties. She is also president of the Ozark Riverways Foundation, a CFO nonprofit partner that supports the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. The national park holds approximately 80,000 acres and the Current and Jack’s Fork rivers in the eastern Ozarks.
That sense of service comes through in her professional life, too. Pacheco is the deputy director of the Poplar Bluff Housing Authority, one of the larger housing authorities in Missouri. “A desire to give back to the community, to help other families, to help make the community stronger — those things are meaningful work to me,” Pacheco says.
Her work with ORF began from her lifelong love of the riverways and ties to the lower Current. “It’s a way to manage my own life pressures and stress,” she says. “Take a walk on a trail, enjoy nature, watch the birds ... . That’s always been nurtured within me growing up.”
When she joined the ORF board, she filled a gap in skills with her master’s degree in business administration and grant writing.
“There’s people on that board that know all the detailed history of the riverways — the people, the culture, all that,” she says. “My piece of it was more to bring some of the businesses processes.
“What I really love about the group is that we’ve all come together and fit those pieces together to create programs and to influence the community. To preserve the rivers and to celebrate the heritage of the area.”
Who inspires you? Send your suggestions of individuals moving the needle in your community to Kaitlyn McConnell, the CFO's writer in residence, at kmcconnell@cfozarks.org.
