The Women's Fund Luncheon, held in the Emerson Suites at Ithaca College on March 11, brought together over 200 guests to celebrate programs serving women in Tompkins County. This year, the Women's Fund Grant Cycle received $17,700 in requests for programs serving women. With the support of an additional $2,488 from three donor advised funds, the entire requested amount was funded. Grants were made for the following eight programs:

• Youth Farm Project (Social Ventures) $2,500 from the Women's Fund and the Rothman & Alford Fund - This grant will be used to allow young women to participate in a carpentry class that will result in the construction of a mobile market stand for the youth to use to provide organic, health produce.
• Women's Opportunity Center $2,250 from the Women's Fund, The Rachel J. Siegel Fund, and the 21 Goodwill Street Fund - To pay 5 participants a weekly stipend while they complete a 6 week "On the Job" training program. Participants have no work history or work experience and are having difficulty competing in the job market with those who do. This amount provides them income while not losing other DSS services.
• Tompkins Community Action $2,500 - To purchase technology for the resident classroom located in Magnolia House, which provides safe, affordable, and stable housing for women who have experienced homelessness and who are working on goals of sobriety, increasing education and employment opportunities, as well as improving life skills.
• Advocacy Center of Tompkins County $1,850 - To support "Emergency Safety Needs" for victims of domestic violence, such as home lock changes, transportation assistance for urgent needs, moving expenses, and communication assistance/cell phone access (which an abuser is not able to control).
• Catholic Charities Tompkins/Tioga $2,500 - Provides a subsidy to assist immigrant and undocumented women to gain citizenship and green cards.
• Catholic Charities Tompkins/Tioga $2,500 - To support low income students (TC3, learning web, workforce NY, GIAC, BOCES, Southside) who meet income guidelines to be successful with their academic pursuits, by providing bus passes and/or subsidies for school supplies.
• Child Development Council of Central NY $2,500 - To provide bus passes or fuel cards to participants in the Family Support Services (FSS) program and Teen Pregnancy/Parenting Program (TP3) during their first weeks of employment, as they await their first paycheck.
• Ithaca Health Alliance $2,500 - To provide low income women with access to health visits, case management, and coordination (for extraordinary GYN needs), pre-employment physicals, and support for PAP smears, thyroid function tests, etc.

Thank you to our community for the amazing support to our Women's Fund, which is supporting these important programs. If you would like to support the Community Foundation's Women's Fund, click here and write "Women's Fund" under "Other".

By Amy LeViere, Donor Services Officer

 

As told by Carrie Regenstein at the 11th Annual Women's Fund Luncheon held on March 10, 2015

 

We all have family stories that have had an important impact on us and have affected the way we go about our lives. One of my favorite family stories is about my paternal grandmother, a tough lady if ever there was one. She was the brains behind the operation that led to the family's escape from Russia in 1920: my grandmother and her husband, and my father, who was then six years old.

 

After a couple of years traveling here, the family spent their first American years in Springfield, Massachusetts - (home of other stories) - and then they went to New York City. My grandmother was thrilled. A prize-winning chess player in the Old Country, she was excited to see concrete chess tables in the park. So one fine spring day, she hurried downstairs, ready to play, and was greeted with the welcome: "Women don't play chess in the park." Without missing a beat, she responded, "OK. How about you let me play until I lose?" The men had never been confronted with this issue before. Since they didn't go to the park to engage in philosophical discussions about gender roles, they decided that the quickest way to get rid of my grandmother would be to let her play once, lose, and move on. Except, of course, she beat them all, became the Chess Queen of the Park, and was a valued member of the gang for as long as she lived in the neighborhood.

 

What gumption she had! How quick and how clever she was. I look around this room and I see a lot of women who can and do the same thing: take a challenging situation and "make the play" to achieve your goals.

 

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