08/14/2026
In Memory of Pany Siharath
Elder. Leader. Visionary. Champion of Community.
It is with profound sadness that the Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota shares the passing of our Board Chair, Pany Siharath, on August 13, 2026.
For LACM, this is more than the loss of a Board Chair. We have lost a dear friend, a trusted elder, a mentor, a colleague, and one of the steadfast champions of our organization and the Lao community in Minnesota.
Pany's history with LACM reaches back decades. He was a longtime Board member and one of LACM's earliest volunteers, giving his time to the organization well before community service became his formal work. In July 2008, he joined LACM as a part-time staff member, bringing with him a remarkable breadth of professional experience and, more importantly, a deep understanding of the needs and strengths of Lao families.
His life reflected a commitment to service in many forms. A former aviation specialist and realtor, Pany also pursued training in chemical health, unemployment, and foreclosure prevention through NeighborWorks America. He understood that the challenges facing families rarely exist in isolation and that effective community work requires helping people navigate the interconnected realities of employment, housing, health, family, and economic stability.
His commitment to young people and families was equally important. Pany served as a Bilingual Parent Liaison for the YMCA, working with youth, and as a liaison for Lincoln Elementary, where he worked directly with Lao children and families until 2002. Fluent in Lao, English, Thai, and French, he had the ability to bridge not only languages, but generations, cultures, institutions, and communities.
That ability to build bridges became one of the defining qualities of his work at LACM.
Pany worked directly in community outreach and engagement—meeting people where they were, listening to their concerns, connecting families with resources, and building the relationships that have always been at the heart of LACM's work. He brought to that work something that cannot be taught through a curriculum: the trust that comes from being part of the community, understanding its history, and showing up consistently over many years.
Among the work closest to him was LACM's environmental programming. Pany became a passionate champion of our Green Team, helping bring environmental education, recycling, waste reduction, and sustainability into the Lao community. He understood environmental stewardship as another expression of caring for community—protecting our neighborhoods and leaving something better for the generations that follow us.
Eventually, Pany retired from his day-to-day work at LACM. But retirement did not end his service.
When LACM needed leadership, Pany answered the call once again, returning to serve as Chair of the LACM Board of Directors. In many ways, that decision captured who Pany was. His relationship with LACM was never defined by employment. It was defined by responsibility, commitment, and love for his community. When there was work to be done, Pany showed up.
Over the course of his life, Pany served community from nearly every possible vantage point—as a volunteer, staff member, educator, youth and family liaison, housing and foreclosure resource, environmental advocate, Board member, and ultimately Board Chair.
But the titles tell only part of his story.
Pany was an elder in the fullest sense of the word. He carried with him history, lived experience, cultural knowledge, and an understanding of how far the Lao community in Minnesota has traveled. He helped preserve that history while continually looking forward to what the community could become.
He was a role model, particularly for younger generations, demonstrating that leadership does not always need to be loud to be powerful. Leadership can be the person who continues to arrive, year after year, ready to help.
He was a bridge builder, able to move between Lao families and mainstream institutions, between elders and young people, and between the traditions of one generation and the possibilities of the next.
He was a visionary who understood that a strong Lao community needed strong institutions of its own—organizations capable of advocating, educating, responding to crises, developing new leaders, and creating a place where Lao voices would always matter.
And he was a champion of LACM who understood that this organization belongs to the community it was created to serve.
For more than four decades, LACM has endured because people have stepped forward when their community needed them. Pany was one of those people. From being among our earliest volunteers, to becoming a staff member, to championing our Green Team, to serving on our Board, and finally returning from retirement to lead that Board, Pany's own story became intertwined with the story of LACM.
There are people whose contributions cannot adequately be captured by a resume, a job title, a Board roster, or even a list of accomplishments. Their impact lives instead in the families they helped, the young people they encouraged, the doors they opened, the relationships they built, the institutions they strengthened, and the example they leave for those who follow.
That is Pany's legacy.
His passing leaves an enormous space within LACM and within our community. We will miss his wisdom, his steady presence, his institutional memory, his humor, his leadership, and his unwavering belief in the importance of this organization and the people it serves.
But we also know that the measure of a community elder's life is found in what continues after them. Pany helped build something that will continue. Every young leader who steps forward, every family that finds support, every community member who discovers the power of their own voice, and every person who answers the call to serve carries a small piece of that legacy forward.
As we grieve this tremendous loss, we celebrate a life devoted to service and express our deepest gratitude for the decades Pany gave to LACM and to Minnesota's Lao community.
Our hearts are with Pany's family, loved ones, friends, colleagues, and the generations of community members whose lives he touched.
Rest in peace, Pany. You answered the call to serve your community again and again. Your service is complete, but your work lives on—in LACM, in our community, and in all of us who had the privilege of walking alongside you.
With love, gratitude, and deepest respect,
The Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota
Pany Siharath has been a long-time board member of the Lao Assistan...
