Charissa Newport
Service, Advocacy, and Community Support
Charissa Newport works at the intersection of service and advocacy in Texas, bringing a notary's attention to detail and a chaplain-in-training's sense of care to every community she touches. Her commitment to Down syndrome advocacy comes from family history, not theory, and it shapes how she shows up for others.
Family Roots
Charissa Newport's connection to Down syndrome advocacy did not start with her. Both of her uncles had Down syndrome, which is how her parents met, and her grandmother, Carolyn Newport, founded The Arc of the Ozarks in Missouri. That history set the course for how Charissa thinks about community: as something built by people who show up for each other, generation after generation.
Her working life in Texas reflects the same instinct. As a commissioned Texas Notary Public, she handles the paperwork that makes life events official for families across the state, work that depends on trust and follow-through. She is also training as a real estate appraiser, a member of the Association of Texas Appraisers, and is pursuing a path toward chaplaincy after earning a Master of Arts in Bible and Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Christianity from Houston Christian University.
Charissa describes herself as someone who reacts urgently to the immediate and follows the lead of change, and as someone others trust to keep a promise. For advocacy work, especially the kind built around families and disability services, that reliability matters as much as the cause itself. Her interests outside of work, gardening among them, feed the same patience and attentiveness she brings to people.