Susan Sedgewick · 2025 Spark Award Winner

Susan Sedgewick came to Washington, DC in 1968 as a recruit to the CIA and to Capitol Hill eleven years later, newly married to John Sedgewick, a colleague from Langley. Since then she has been, like the late Steve Cymrot for whom the award is named, a spark of excitement, inspiration and dedication to the community around her.

Her professional career was intense. Starting as a Fortran programmer, she was part of the transition from enormous piles of punch cards to tidy desk top computers. She worked up until the day before the birth of her son, Wally, and was back at the office three months later. But when he was 8 years old and the Soviet Union had collapsed Susan decided that it was time to shift her focus from the dynamics of international politics to closer to home. She received a CIA Career Service Medal and happily changed gears. Walking her son to school at Watkins Elementary and then at Capitol Hill Day School, becoming assistant manager of her son’s soccer team (the Capitol Hill Rangers), volunteering with the  Cub Scouts, she got to know her neighbors and the institutions that sustain them. Even with the addition of some contract work doing systems analysis and studies for the House Committee on Appropriations, she was increasingly absorbed with neighborhood-related activities.

Long service on the Board of Everyone Home DC (originally the Capitol Hill Group Ministry) culminated in her role as project manager for the renovation of a local townhouse into “Shirley’s Place,” a day hospitality center offering laundry facilities, access to computers and food and fellowship to the temporarily unhoused. She is still recruiting volunteers to prepare and serve monthly lunches there. She joined the Board of Capitol Hill Village as an investment in the future not just for herself and John but for all residents of the Hill. And as a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Susan has done everything from polishing the silver as a member of the Altar Guild to organizing teenagers to make sandwiches for distribution by the Salvation Army. She has served as a Precinct Captain at her voting location and, in her most recent endeavor, has become what she calls a “weary rat warrior,” leading the effort to coordinate with the city to rid the alley behind her house, which backs up on several restaurants, of unwelcome rodents. 

The urge to volunteer and to participate is something Susan learned early. While her father’s career in the Air Force meant her family moved a lot, being a Girl Scout gave her a sense of belonging and engagement she didn’t find at school. It was through her connection to the Scouts that she became a volunteer at the 1961 John F. Kennedy inaugural parade where she remembers being very cold and very happy. Decades later she wore her JFK parade badge under her parka when volunteering at the equally cold Obama inauguration.