We’re ready! Are you?

But we can do more. Much more.        

Planning is ongoing for the annual Sister to Sister Summit held all-day in November at Maryville College. Some of you have heard about the prior Summits, held here beginning in 2001, or other Summits that have been held around the country since 1997.

At a Summit, girls in grades 7 - 12 from schools all over the region are brought together for a day of small group discussion, brainstorming, and problem solving that ends with a Platform for Action in the community. When the day is done, the girls have given voice to the concerns and issues they want to change in their communities, and they’ll have a plan for making those changes happen. Our job, then, is to help them make their plan a reality.

The issues girls bring up, such as sexual harassment, violence, early sexual activity, substance abuse, and body image, are issues many of us are already involved with one way or another. However, the Summit empowers girls by allowing the girls themselves to tell us what they need most. It teaches them that what they have to say matters.

This event is impossible without the help of sponsors from all over the area, including organizations like yours, businesses, schools, churches and others. This is just the kind of opportunity a coalition like ours needs to continue getting the word out about the work we’re all doing. 

When we speak with one great voice, we are more easily heard. Forming a coalition of area women’s organizations helps us do just that. The Women’s Empowerment Coalition and Network (WeCan!) brings together representatives from different organizations to pool resources while maintaining individual identities and programs. Using a feminine model of cooperation, rather than competition, we offer encouragement, share ideas, information, experience and energy. WeCan! help each other to be more effective in our individual and collective efforts.

Since September, 2000, we’ve met together to explore issues and opportunities facing women and girls in our county. Along the way, we’ve invited all of you to join us, and you’ve graciously accepted that invitation. At each gathering, we have been so honored, and so encouraged by the common bond we clearly share. Each of you have, in your own arena, been doing much to help women find jobs or safety, help girls assert themselves, help mothers with their children, help daughters with their dreams.

Many of you were kind enough to share that first evening with us back in January, 2001. Click here for a report on that meeting. It was amazing. That evening, we experienced just the slightest hint of what might be possible if we could work together, if we could channel all that energy into a unified voice. There were so many talented and remarkable people in the room — each leaders in their own right, each committed to taking action for their own mothers, daughters, and granddaughters.

As we’ve said before, who knows what can happen when great minds work together? Together, we’ve developed a vision for the future for the women and girls of Blount County. Now we’re ready to continue building a coalition to make that future real.

Working together, we can design opportunities to advertise staffing and program needs, announce new services, and discuss significant events and trends in the community. We’re all trying to do the most we can with the least money. What if we share grant information? Contacts? What if we work together as co-sponsors on community events or in schools and churches? What if we team up to offer training to professionals in law enforcement, the clergy, or other important groups to whom women may turn for help? What if we lobby together in Nashville for needed legislation in areas of domestic violence, marital rape, economic equality for women, safety for newborns?

The list is endless and the possibilities unlimited. Together, WeCan!

We are currently holding ongoing planning meetings for the Sister-to-Sister Summit.  We hope you, or a representative of your organization, will join us. Please understand — this is no longer an AAUW activity or event!!! We are just one of many, many groups involved in this effort. This is a Blount County Women’s event! This coalition is yours, mine, ours.

Let us know.

If you can’t be a part of this, will you send someone else from your group? Call one of us at the numbers on the Board of Directors page  and let us know what you think. Let us know if you’ll join us as we work to bring about amazing things in Blount County.