40 Under 40 Alumni Spotlight: Anjanette Labellarte, 2006

Then: Account executive, Welcome Wagon
Now: Executive director, Hospice Foundation for Outreach Inc.

Anjanette LaBellarte says she’s evolved over the past 20 years.

“Nonprofit is my life,” she says. “I was thinking that I was going to go do some big corporate jet-setting life, and then God had other plans for me.”

In 2006, LaBellarte worked in sales for a firm serving people who’d recently moved to town.

“I was so excited to work from home because I was a single mother of two little young girls,” LaBellarte, 57, says.

Afterward, she did fundraising for nonprofits. Then she faced a layoff due to COVID-19.

“I got to take my grandmother out of the nursing home and bring her home and take care of her till she passed,” LaBellarte says. “And that’s when I got my taste of hospice.”

She calls that experience one that brought blessing and connection.

“When dad or mom or brother or sister or son or daughter’s been diagnosed with a disease ... I get to help those families, so they become my family.”

Advice to young professionals? Be authentic, be intentional. Be yourself because that’s what people really want. People can see if you’re real or fake.