Elizabeth Fust

“My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours. We belong in a bundle of life.” Desmond Tutu, describing the meaning of the Bantu word Ubuntu.

Elizabeth Fust is an attorney and the founder and president of the nonprofit corporation Gathering Strength, Inc. She was born and raised in Louisville. She is the product of both public and Catholic schools, and graduated from Sacred Heart Academy. She received her undergraduate degree from Miami University, in Oxford OH; and graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Law in Madison, WI.

She has devoted her professional career to community development and civil rights practice in rural Campbell County, Tennessee; Durham, North Carolina; and Louisville, Kentucky. In the early 2000s, she supervised the fair housing activities at the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, was a labor liaison for Jefferson County, and entered into private practice in a small firm devoted to labor and employment matters.

Shortly after participating in her first successful federal trial in January of 2006, Liz suffered a spinal cord stroke that left her with a spinal cord injury. She is paraplegic and uses a wheelchair. Since her injury, she has collaborated with Frazier Rehab Institute and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropic support for its spinal cord medicine program and Community Fitness and Wellness program, which is a totally accessible fitness gym for people with disabilities. She is currently a member of the UofL Health-Frazier Rehab Institute Board of Trustees.

Liz founded the tax-exempt nonprofit, Gathering Strength, Inc, in 2018 to empower people with disabilities by ensuring equitable access to community spaces and resources, technology, and better health.