When her school-age daughter wanted to learn to knit twenty years ago, Martha Gershun
signed up for mother-daughter knitting lessons. Her daughter bailed after several sessions, but
Martha loved everything about knitting and never stopped. A self-described “rectangle knitter,”
Martha has made blankets and scarves for nearly everyone she knows. Her stash of carefully
crafted baby blankets stored in a cedar “Grandmother’s Hope Chest” finally saw the light in
February 2022 when her twin grandsons were born.
Martha has over 40 years of leadership experience in Fortune 500 corporations, start-up
ventures, and nonprofit organizations. In 2017 she retired as Executive Director of Jackson
County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and now spends her days as a nonprofit
consultant, community volunteer, and writer.
In 2018 she donated a kidney at the Mayo Clinic to a woman she read about in the newspaper.
She wrote about that experience in Kidney to Share (Cornell University Press, 2021), co-
authored with John D. Lanots, MD.
Martha lives in Kansas City with her husband, Don Goldman, who wears her knit scarves with
appropriate pride and pleasure.
