Shirley Schofield calls being CEO of the Food Bank of North Alabama “kind of a second career for me.”

“I was a journalist for many years,” she told the Lede. “I worked in newspapers in Mississippi, Florida and California. I loved it and did it for about 25 years. I was an assistant city editor, deputy city editor. I was out in California, and I just needed to move back and be closer to my family in Alabama.”

Originally from south Alabama, Schofield had family in Huntsville.

“It was a better area for me to try to find something new,” she said.

Schofield wanted to work at a non-profit and started volunteering in the area. She saw an ad for a position at the Food Bank of North Alabama.