Women United: Women’s Leadership Group works to impact women and children in the community

By Karen Walker

When COVID-19 struck in 2020, it could have had dire consequences for Park Forest Preschool and the 25 low-income families it serves. Parents depended on the tuition-free preschool remaining open so that they could go to work, and their children depended on the education and the two hot meals the school provided each day. 

Meanwhile, the nonprofit preschool relied on donations and support from agencies like the United Way in order to operate. Those funds were already earmarked for regular day-to-day operations, and it quickly became apparent that more money would be necessary in order to stay open and operate in a COVID-safe manner.

“We didn’t really know what we were going to need or how life was going to change, but we knew in order to be successful and re-open we were going to have to take all the necessary precautions, and that was going to cost money,” says Sue Hills, executive director of Park Forest Preschool.

The school applied for, and received, a $5,000 grant from the Women’s Leadership Group of Centre County United Way, allowing staff to purchase things like cleaning supplies, face masks, rapid COVID tests, and even tents and picnic tables to allow more activities to take place in the safety of the outdoors.

This small grant is in many ways indicative of what the Women’s Leadership Group is all about.

Women empowering women

Since its inception, the group’s mission has always been to support programs affecting the well-being of women and children. To that end, the group awards an average of $12,300 each year to nonprofits who apply for grants for specific projects not already covered by United Way funds.

“These are things that may not be big or flashy enough to get other people’s attention, but that the women in this group understand and can relate to, and recognize the need,” says Barbara Sherlock, current chair of the Women’s Leadership Group.

Just who are “the women in this group?” They are typically 20 to 30 local women who make a contribution to the United Way’s annual campaign, and an additional contribution ($250 for women under 50, $500 for women 50 and older) to the Women’s Leadership Group. The amount of funds the group can distribute is based on how many women pay for membership each year. In the spring, a grant committee made up of five or six women from the group reviews the proposals they have received and selects the recipients.

The Women’s Leadership Group meets in person at luncheons twice a year—at least when COVID restrictions are not a factor. During these luncheons, representatives from recent recipient organizations make presentations about how they’ve used their grants.

“What’s really cool is that the women who contribute the money for this grant also get to review the applications to determine where it goes, and then also they get to experience the director or program director coming and speaking about what they did with the money, so they really see the impact,” says Leanne Lenz, executive director of CCUW. 

“It’s extremely rewarding to have that level of understanding of how your contribution really made a difference,” says Women’s Leadership Group member Cristin Long.

The group was formed in 2004 under the leadership of Ellie Beaver, then Centre County United Way executive director, who hoped to empower women to make their own decisions about charitable giving, apart from their spouses. She was inspired in part by similar groups affiliated with United Way organizations across the country. Today, there are 165 similar groups in six countries, most using the name “Women United.”

Dollars at work

During its first several years, the Women’s Leadership Group focused on raising money to help launch the Centre County Child Access Center in Bellefonte, which opened in 2008 to provide a safe place for monitored custody exchanges and supervised visitations. While the center was largely funded by a federal grant of $400,000, the Women’s Leadership Group was able to donate $57,000 to pay for things not covered by the grant, including toys, furniture, and capital improvements.

For a few years after that initial project, the Women’s Leadership Group focused on providing funds to students in local school districts who needed financial help for things like sports equipment, yearbooks, and class trips. 

“We were kind of flailing for a couple of years,” says Sherlock. “But in 2014 we formed a process for distributing grants.”

Grant recipients do not necessarily need to be partners of the CCUW, but they do need to be 501(c)(3) organizations who are starting a new program or a significant expansion to a program that is designed to benefit women or children.

The Arc of Centre County was awarded $3,500 in 2021 “to promote healthy relationships, abuse prevention, and healthy sexuality in people who have intellectual disabilities, because here we believe they are just like you and I. They deserve an everyday life, and part of that is having a fulfilling relationship,” says Maddie Sell, director of behavior support services at The Arc.

Under Sell’s direction, the grant money has provided assessment tools to gauge individuals’ current understanding of consent and relationships, and materials for a curriculum entitled Circles, a social-skills-building program for individuals with disabilities.

“These tools are invaluable in helping us to find standardized ways of addressing concerns that we’ve seen for so many years—making sure the people we support understand their right to say ‘no’ to something, and giving them what they need to understand relationships,” says Becky Cunningham, CEO of The Arc. 

Mid-State Literacy Council has been awarded several WLG grants over the years. Last year, they received $5,000 toward a program entitled “Literacy for Life: Women Building Financial Stability through Education.” The program specifically serves women living in two affordable housing communities in Bellefonte and State College.

“The purpose is to give people the opportunity of education, to improve their education skill levels in reading, writing, and math,” explains director Amy Wilson. “We have some residents who want to pass the GED test and get their high school equivalency diploma. There is a focus on employment. … They’re highly motivated. They really want the education.”

In 2020, the Women’s Leadership Group also gave the Mid-State Literacy Council $3,000 toward a program to teach computer skills to grandparents raising grandchildren, something Wilson says became crucially important in the midst of the pandemic. 

“Computer skills are absolutely essential because that’s how schools communicate with parents. And there are levels of complexity with that, and it can be challenging for parents, grandparents, and guardians to communicate with schools using that vehicle. So we wanted to make sure that they could use a computer and that they understood how to access information,” she says.

“There were some extraordinary outcomes. We had some grandparents that were able to keep their jobs during the pandemic because they learned enough computer skills that they could work remotely when they were told they had to. Another huge benefit we didn’t foresee is they were able to use telehealth. That has been a lifesaver for people. … It was an enormously supportive program during a time that we hadn’t anticipated that it would be needed, but it’s still making a big difference.”

In fact, sustainability is an important consideration for the Women’s Leadership Group.

“What we are giving is one-year start-up money. They need to provide an explanation for how they’re going to keep the project going after that,” Sherlock explains.

Wilson says, “I won’t do a pilot program unless I think I can raise the funds to continue the project. [Women’s Leadership Group members] are so generous and so thoughtful about helping women and children, and I want to make sure that the programs last.”

One of her long-lasting programs goes back to a WLG grant awarded in 2017 to provide intensive ESL (English as a second language) training to immigrants. Today, that program continues to thrive, currently offering English lessons to Afghan refugee mothers who have recently arrived in Centre County.

Other organizations who have received WLG grants over the years include Centre Safe, Jana Marie Foundation, Centre County Youth Service Bureau, Discovery Space, and the Center for Alternatives in Community Justice, to name a few. 

“These dollars and start-up funds are really crucial,” says Cunningham. “They’re not hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that’s okay—sometimes we just need a push to help get over a threshold.”

Social rewards

While it is certainly gratifying to the members of the Women’s Leadership Group to be able to provide monetary assistance to important causes, membership is about more than simply writing a check.

“There’s a rewarding social component as well as a rewarding philanthropic component,” says Long, who first learned about the group about four years ago through her involvement with the United Way. 

She attended a luncheon to see what it was all about, and says, “I remember being in that room and thinking, ‘This is a roomful of really influential women who are making a real impact for women and children in the community, but in a very quiet way.’ And I just wanted to be a part of it.”

Sherlock is hopeful that there will be more opportunities for the group to resume their regular luncheons and find other ways to get together in person soon, as COVID concerns ease. 

“When we were getting together for planning meetings in 2019, we had really fascinating and enjoyable discussions. There’s a lot of energy when we are able to meet face-to-face,” she says. “Just exchanging ideas among the women plants a lot of seeds for other things that might be going on in the community, too. It leads to things going on at an informal level as well as on the formal grant level.”

The Women’s Leadership Group is actively looking for more members. Women who are interested can reach out to the CCUW office at (814) 238-8283. The collection of funds to be distributed this year was wrapped up by the end of January, but prospective members are welcome to attend any meetings or social gatherings as they take place; they also can receive a monthly newsletter. To join, women will be asked to contribute at least $250 or $500 (based on age) to the 2022 CCUW campaign fund—which recently announced its loftiest goal to date, with the slogan “$2.2 in ’22”—as well as the additional $250 or $500 membership fee. But Lenz says if the required giving level is a barrier to someone who wants to get involved, the group is willing to find a way to work with them. 

More members would of course allow the group to make an even bigger impact for local women and children—an impact for which many local organizations are already grateful.

“We are very happy to have [the Women’s Leadership Group] on our side,” says Cunningham. “They’re thoughtful women who come together and really want to make a difference in the community, and hopefully, we’re thoughtful women who can carry that out.” T&G

Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.