WEW Strategic Initiatives

2022 – 2023

Women Empowering Women wants to identify and find solutions to the challenges of women in all stages of life. Our initiatives reach out to young women, elderly women and all ages in between. We are learning and embracing our role as a catalyst to help women respond to needs in our community. Our board and members are multi-skilled and ready to work with individuals or groups who see a challenge or find a solution that needs a partner or supports.

2022 -2023 Strategic Initiatives of WEW:

• Unlock the Code:  A Coding Camp for Girls – Fourteen high school girls are registered for camp in June. We partnered with Roughrider Area Career & Tech Center to offer this camp. What a fun and exciting way for young women to learn more about nontraditional careers!
• Holiday Drive – Providing a little bit of financial relief at the holidays for elderly women. New in 2022 will be help in the spring and funds set aside to support emergency needs.
• Be The Light – Celebrating and connecting women in the community as we support programs that help women.
• Kudos –Shining the spotlight on the good works of women who have an impact in our community.
• Etiquette Dinner – Our first etiquette dinner hosted 12 young adults for an educational session by certified trainer, and board member Jami Haynes. This year we’ll host an etiquette luncheon for young professional followed by another dinner event for young adults.
• Well Women Care Initiative – This year’s event will focus on heart, cervical and breast care. Hispanic and Rwandan women will be invited to register for free Pap Smears at Connect Medical and free Mammograms through Women’s Way North Dakota. We’ll sneak in a bit of information from the local Domestic Violence & Rape Crisis Center to expand their outreach to underserved women.
• Emerging Women Artist – This year we are working with artist awardees to help them commercialize their art. 2022 Show winners art will be made into note cards available for sale that will benefit both the artists and Women Empowering Women. What a great way to support women artists!
• Fiscal Agent – We are hosting a Bush Change Network grant for member RubyAnn who is working on an exciting project to combine a chocolate experience with capturing and sharing stories of pioneering women in the region.
• Membership recruitment – growing our network and memberships. This year we’ll better define membership opportunities as we increase our support from women who aren’t able to be involved but want to provide financial support.

Join Us on Our Fun Empowering Journey!

Year in Review

Fiscal Agent Process:  Recognizing that projects need funding and sometimes a funding source needs a nonprofit to receive and administer funds, we established a process to serve as fiscal agent. 

Well Women Care Initiative:  Funded by the North Dakota Department of Health, an outreach event was held on December 13 to connect Hispanic women to health resources.      

Kudos:  We celebrated six amazing women and one organization in our community through Kudos in 2021.  Their stories were shared through articles in the Heart River Voice, our FaceBook and this website.

Holiday Drive:  The 2021 Holiday Drive for low-income elderly women exceeded our expectations!   We were able to provide gift cards to 42 recipients before Christmas.  Cash cards and gift cards were mailed through our partners Social Services, local churches and St. Luke’s Nursing Home. 

Pre-Diabetes Program:  As a follow on to the Well Woman Care Initiative, the Department of Health also asked us to be a partner bringing pre-diabetes education to at risk Hispanic women in our community.  We are proud to share that this is the first bi-lingual Spanish taught pre-diabetes program in North Dakota! 

Emerging Women Artist Awards:  In November 2021 we recognized two women artists at the Badlands Art Association Art Show.  Emerging Women Artists were selected in the adult and youth categories. 

WEW Strategic Initiatives

2021 – 2022

• Fiscal agent or grant administration services. As a 501c3 designated tax exempt organization, we can partner with informal groups to receive and administer funds to support their community projects.
• Be the Light Event and Annual Meeting. This is a celebration of women with opportunities to socialize and to donate to local nonprofits helping women and children. This is also an opportunity to learn more about Women Empowering Women.
• Kudos. Recognizes the good works of local women. We write their stories for publication on our website and in local news outlets.
• Membership. Always interested in growing our network & membership!
• Etiquette Luncheon. Helping young women to prepare to succeed in life as they learn and exhibit important basic etiquette.
• Holiday Drive. This fundraiser assists financially challenged elderly women in our community at Christmas. Our understanding of this need continues to grow from our first introduction at Be the Light 2017. WEW is in a unique position to be the vehicle for our community to address this need. Our goal is to expand efforts to create an emergency fund to identify partners and support unexpected needs throughout the year.
• Well Women Care Initiative. We seek to welcome Latino women and their families living in Dickinson, North Dakota. We will collaborate with Latino women with tools and knowledge so that they can (1) feel secure in the development of their role as protagonists for their homes and children, (2) develop skills for social inclusion, (3) have access to an interpreter and opportunities to practice the English language, (5) have knowledge about health care and disease prevention and (6) have access to affordable public transportation. (Project Outline)
• Pick Me Ups. Sometimes we just need a little pick me up! In concert with the Holiday Drive, we are positioning to respond to “non-essential” needs by looking forward to finding ways to bring a little extra joy to financially vulnerable elderly women.
• Status of Women and Children in Dickinson and Stark County. We’re keeping an eye on the 2020 Census release to update the 2018 report. We are interested to see how our community evolves and changes over time. We are already seeing responses to areas of needs from the first report!
• STEM Experiences for Young Girls.
  We see an opportunity to connect young girls to emerging careers. We are planning to host a 2022 Summer Coding Camp for girls.
• As the Southwest Area Career and Technical Education Academy opens, we will collaborate on experiences that introduce young women to professionals by developing mentor relationships, job shadowing and internships.

Year in Review 2020

Assessing Gaps in the System: Girl’s Careers and the Transition to Adulthood

We wrapped up our initial research and found things we expected and things we did not. Moving forward we hope to interact with young women in our community to further understand their needs. Some findings were beyond our abilities but we plan to continue to inform potential partners in the hope that they can. The full report is on our website.

Status of Women and Children in Dickinson and Stark County

We distributed over 200 copies of the report to women leaders in the community and attendees at the Women’s Expo.

2020 Holiday Drive for Low Income Elderly Women

We received $7000.00 in cash and gift cards. Gift cards were distributed to 34 elderly low-income women at Christmas. Cash and gift cards received after distribution are set aside to support 2021 needs.

2021 – 2022 Strategic Initiatives

Continue:

• Be The Light Event – celebrating women in our community.
  Kudos – recognizing the good works of local women.
• Membership recruitment – growing our network and memberships.
  Holiday Drive – helping financially elderly women in our community at the Holidays.

New

• Etiquette Luncheon – fall 2021 – help young women prepare to succeed as they learn and exhibit basic etiquette.
• Holiday Drive – expand our network of referrals to reach more women and establish a year round emergency fund.
• Well Women Care Initiative – connecting Hispanic women in our community to health care and disease prevention.
• Pick Me Ups – finding little ways to bring extra joy to financial vulnerable elderly women.
• Status of Women and Children in Dickinson and Stark County – update and distribute the report after 2020 Census information is released.
• STEM experiences for young girls – host a 2022 Coding Camp for girls and explore how we can introduce young women to mentors, job shadowing and internships

WEW Accomplishments 2019-2020

Young Women

Check out our partnership with Change Network to assess gaps in the system. Read the Press Release about the project:

Assessing Gaps in the System: Girls’ Careers and the Transition to Adulthood

On another front, we just released a report:

The Status of Women and Children in Dickinson, Stark County.

This report is offered as a framework to present a portrait of the status of women and children. This report can establish a baseline to which we can better understand how our community evolves and changes over time. County-level indicators can help to inform local policy by identifying areas of need and providing a context for local policy agendas or system change.

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