Bianca Welds Awarded Kim Parsell Travel Scholarship

The WordPress Foundation has awarded Bianca Welds with the Kim Parsell travel scholarship to attend WordCamp US 2017. Welds lives in Jamaica and has been using WordPress since 2005. We featured her on the Tavern in 2015 when she provided insight into the Jamaican WordPress community.

Welds will be presenting at WordCamp US on how a couple is using WordPress to try to increase understanding and participation of the Deaf community in Jamaica.

“Besides the fact that I am really excited and honored to have been selected, and humbled by the outpouring of support since the announcement,” Welds said. “I’m looking forward to WordCamp US and meeting even more amazing people from the WordPress community.”

Welds has identified a few members of the WordPress community in her area and is attempting to create a nucleus to build on, “We will be starting meetups in December/January,” she said. “We also have a workshop series (a bit of an unWordCamp) being planned to help stir up more interest in WordPress and the community.”

If you see Welds at WCUS, be sure to say hi and congratulate her.

HeroPress Publishes Essay Dedicated to Kim Parsell

Coinciding with the scholarship announcement, HeroPress has published an essay that members of the community contributed too, including myself, in memory of Kim Parsell. The theme of the essay is ‘What did the WordPress Community Mean to Kim?’.

It has been nearly three years since Kim passed away but in my conversations with her online and in the physical world, I understood what the community meant to her. It meant family, a responsibility she took very seriously. I highly encourage you to read the essay and the beautiful things people had to say about Kim. She is missed by many but her spirit lives on.