Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Davie Community Foundation is continuing the “Where Are They Now?” series.

By Madison Hartness

Davie Community Foundation

Elizabeth Davis is a former SURF Board member and recipient of the Rotary Club of Mocksville and Roy and Ruth Eldridge scholarships. She is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill where she studied history with minors in Spanish for the medical profession and chemistry.

Her philanthropic passion was apparent in high school and continued through her organizational involvement in college. She volunteered with Project Literacy through the Campus Y (the hub of social justice initiatives at UNC) and went on to become president of the group. She organized initiatives that placed volunteers to work with English as a Second Language students, tutor inmates for GED courses, and more.

During one of her summer breaks, she participated in Outward Board and spent a month hiking portions of the Mountains to Sea and Appalachian trails. Her senior year consisted of a semester in Quito, Ecuador where she lived with a host family and took classes in Spanish at the university.

Her passion for travel continued as she spent a year teaching English and computer classes in Thailand to 6-12th grade students. She returned to Memphis, Tenn. to attend Optometry School at Southern College of Optometry.

Her philanthropic adventures continued as she spent a summer working on a research project with Unite for Sight in Chennai, India. While in India, Elizabeth gathered information on eyedrop compliance after cataract surgery and performed eye screenings in urban clinics.

In 2019, she graduated from optometry school and began her residency in the Salisbury VA system. She provides primary eye care as well as low vision and specialty contact lens services to veterans. She finds her work with veterans rewarding because she is able to give back to those who have given so much for our country. With a goal of working to promote the profession of optometry in the United States and abroad, she will complete her residency in June.

To Elizabeth, Davie County means a supportive community that provided her with an unbeatable education. Her time on SURF Board through Davie Community Foundation let her see the positive impact of philanthropy at an early age. She fondly remembers her time playing tennis and trombone as a student at North Davie Middle School and Davie County High School, and learning to unicycle at Shady Grove Elementary with Mrs. Umberger’s Sizzling Cyclers Club.

She encourages today’s high school seniors to keep an open mind, be adaptable, try to have as many experiences as you can, and say yes to every opportunity within reason. Elizabeth also advises students to write out specific goals and detail concrete and attainable steps to reach them.

In her free time she loves to travel (she has visited 22 counties), be outdoors, and she hopes to adopt a dog.