5/20/2019 - Empowering Change

Dear Founder Region Members,
Thank you to all who attended our 2019 Founder Region Conference and were Empowering Change!
 
We were Empowering Change at our conference by bringing a fresh topic to our Legislative Advocacy sessions, and one that tied directly to our SI/International President’s Appeal – Women, Water and Leadership.  We were Empowering Change by having both our Soroptimist International President Mariet Verhoef-Cohen and our SIA Federation President Elizabeth Di Geronimo as visitors and presenters at our conference.  It was enlightening to many of our members to bring an international perspective, as explained by SI Director of Advocacy Bev Bucur; she helped us all to see the work that our organization is doing globally and showed us that we have many strong voices at the United Nations.
 
We were Empowering Change by conducting our business in an efficient manner and we thank you for seeing the reality of the change that was needed and by accomplishing our District Realignment.  We were Empowering Change by incorporating a group project into the event, and like any first-time fundraiser or event, we will learn and improve on the ability to execute these types of projects again in the future.  We were Empowering Change by our District Directors reporting club activities in the form of posters that clubs can take back and share at events or in their communities and a PowerPoint presentation showing club photos.
 
We were Empowering Change in the lives of our Fellowship recipients by giving $100,000.00 in Fellowship Awards to women in the final phase of their Doctoral programs, and we learned that we will have to give generously to be able to give as many awards in the future since we have brought down our Fellowship reserve funds over the last few biennium.  We were Empowering Change in the lives of our Violet Richardson Award recipients, Ruby Award recipient, and our  Barbara Stevenson “S” Club Award recipient by acknowledging and appreciating them for the good they are doing in their work, schools and communities,  And we were Empowering Change in the lives of the Live Your Dream Award recipients who showed us it is never too late, too hard, or too daunting to overcome obstacles and achieve success.
 
Governor Sylvia
“Empowering Change”