Dashona Mahoney isn’t bored in Hutchinson.

In fact, the community is keeping her plenty busy serving various nonprofit organizations and committees, including Hutchinson Community Foundation as board vice chairperson, and fulfilling her passion for the arts.

“I find theatre and music to be essential in my life and I love sharing those things with the people around me,” the Data Center Inc., controller said.

Mahoney maintains a changemaker-at­-work mentality, one in which ensuring a thriving, sustainable community for the future of her children—Sonata, 21, Vaughn, 19, Branton, 14, and grandson Owen, 1—requires hands-on participation and cultivation.

“For me, time is a more valuable commodity,” she said.

“Effecting change on an issue often involves intervention well beyond giving money to it. Gathering ideas and then seeing them come to fruition is what gets me excited about giving my time.”

And so, in addition to her role on the Community Foundation board, Mahoney serves as the business manager at Stage 9, as a Leadership Reno County co­facilitator, as the treasurer at New Hope Baptist Church and she was formerly the treasurer of the Emancipation Committee.

During her time as a leader, she’s watched the community innovate to solve problems and come together to help those in times of need.

“I have seen our community and nonprofits collaborate to do big things in Hutchinson, and that type of sacrificial work is always amazing to me,” she said.

So don’t tell her Hutchinson doesn’t have things to do. She knows better.

“I love this community and very much enjoy working to make it a better place. One of my proudest moments was when I recently heard someone say ‘Man, there’s too much stuff to do in Hutch!'”