Kim demonstrated her ability to advance creative ideas as project director for the SPARK Pool Committee. In this role, from November 2002 to June 2004, Kim galvanized a group of more than a dozen volunteers to develop an ambitious plan to bring a community pool to Fairfield. Working with town officials and a professional pool design firm, Kim's team coordinated the "Dive in Now" campaign. This grassroots effort motivated more than 1,000 Fairfield families to show their commitment to the pool project by contributing $100 apiece toward pool membership.

In addition to the $100,000 raised through the "founding families," SPARK raised $25,000 to finance architectural concepts, designs, and a cost analysis outlining how user fees would cover all facility costs. Although the town did not move forward with the project, SPARK succeeded in demonstrating the substantial need and desire for a pool facility in Fairfield.

As membership co-chair for the League of Women Voters of Fairfield from 2003 to 2005, Kim played an instrumental role in helping the Fairfield chapter gain state-level recognition for successful recruiting.

Kim also guided the League's sponsorship of a major public forum in November 2004 on the federal No Child Left Behind law and its impact on our schools. A committee headed by Kim succeeded in drawing top public officials and education specialists as speakers: Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal; Fran Rabinowitz, assistant commissioner for teaching, learning and assessment for the Connecticut Department of Education; and Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, chairman of the state's House Education Committee.

Noting the lack of on-site after-school classes at Stratfield School, Kim worked with the PTA and other committed parents to establish the Above and Beyond after-school program in 2005. Students have the option of enrolling in affordable classes in karate, drama, dance, science, art and music. Now in its second year, Above and Beyond serves almost 200 children, representing about 40 percent of the school's population each semester. Kim was elected to the Stratfield School PTA Executive Board for 2005-2007.

Kim currently serves as the outgoing chair of Connecticut's oldest established community association, the Brooklawn Park Community Association. She is the first woman to serve as chair of the community group since its founding in 1920.

Prior to having children, Kim was a youth project director for the National School Health Education Coalition (NaSHEC) in Washington, DC. Kim worked with government and grassroots organizations across the country to develop health programs for children, with a particular emphasis in Louisiana and Florida.

Before working with NaSHEC, Kim was a legislative assistant to Governor William Donald Schaeffer of Maryland in his congressional and federal relations office. One of Kim's biggest accomplishments in that job was her organization and development of a welfare reform information session. Kim led approximately 50 congressional staffers and members of the Clinton administration on a tour of Baltimore's nationally recognized welfare programs to help demonstrate Maryland's welfare successes and failures, and to encourage the development of more successful national programs.

Kim started her work on Capitol Hill straight out of college as a congressional intern for U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland. This job served as an ideal launching point for understanding how government works, immersing Kim in the legislative policy-making arena and reinforcing the concept that individual voices can drive politics.

While working for Gov. Schaeffer, Kim earned a master's degree in legislative affairs from George Washington University in Washington, DC, giving her a great opportunity to apply her studies to her daily work. Kim graduated from Towson University in Baltimore in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in business administration.

In 2005, Kim attended the Women's Campaign School at Yale University, a training program for women interested in running for public office.

Kim, 37, was born and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland. She and her husband, Rick, have been married for 12 years. In 1999, they moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to the Stratfield section of Fairfield. They have three young children: Kylie, 8; Cassie, 7; and Nicholas, 5.