The Wisconsin Women of Color Network (WWOCN) will hold its annual scholarship and fundraising brunch and general meeting Saturday, Dec. 1, 9 a.m-3 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel, 525 W. Johnson St.
“This is one of our signature events and it always has a nice turnout,” WWOCN founder Agnes Cammer tells Madison365. “We first started this event back in 1990 and we do this every year. This is our big fundraising event. “We don’t have the big corporate sponsors, but we do raise enough money for our scholarships.”
The Wisconsin Women of Color Network (WWOCN), through statewide collaboration, assists women of color in accessing educational resources, health care, social services, and focuses on political participation, leadership training, cross-cultural awareness, entrepreneurship, and spiritual and economic well-being. They provide scholarships to young women of color who wanted to purse vocational, technical, or college education.
Each year, WWOCN awards the Mabel Smith Memorial Scholarship to a student pursuing a two-year technical/occupational skills or industry related degree; Cammer-Hill Grants to assist students with expenses not generally covered by other scholarships; and the Future Leaders Fund to enable middle and high school students to participate in educational opportunities that focus on the development of individual skills in communication, fellowship and leadership. The Hattie J. Hilliard Award is for students interested in pursuing a career in art.
Once a year WWOCN appeals to its members, family and friends to raise money for the Wisconsin Women of Color Network Scholarship Fund. There’s a silent auction, a brunch, speakers, arts and crafts and books and vendors – usually women of color – who are sprinkled about for people who want to do holiday shopping.”
“People come from the community or members bring guests. It’s a great chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while … sometimes since the last year’s event,” Cammer says. “It’s like a reunion, but we also meet new people. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a family-friendly event, too, so you can bring the kids.”
WWOCN first started in 1980 and were officially incorporated in 1983. Back then, it was called Wisconsin Minority Women’s Network and the official focus was on employment. The WWOCN was needed at that time to help women of color stand on their own as productive members of society by successfully finding and landing good-paying jobs as well as promoting equal rights for them in the workplace.
“We’ve been in existence for 35 years. Of the seven Great Lakes Region [organizations], we are one of the three that are still active,” Cammer says.
WWOCN will occasionally host events for its members like the one they recently hosted in Milwaukee – the Wisconsin Women of Color Leadership (WWOCN) Annual Leadership Development Conference titled “Breaking Barriers: Women of Color in the Political Arena.” The event was attended by women of color in the state of Wisconsin and beyond and featured speakers and discussion leaders sharing their personal experience on what it means as a woman of color to be involved in politics and run for office. Kashoua “Kristy” Yang, the first Hmong judge in Wisconsin history and the first Hmong woman judge in the United States, was the keynote speaker.
“Kristy Yang was a great speaker and the event was really well attended,” Cammer says. “That was really an enjoyable event.”
WWOCN is a volunteer-powered organization with members putting in plenty of hours. Cammer, who is now 93 years old, says she is ready to hand over some of the responsibilities of moving WWOCN forward to some of its newer and younger members. Just recently, they brought on three new board members: Charlotte Deleste, channel 3 anchorperson; Carrie Braxton, Dane County Manager of Equal Employment Opportunity; Nereida Quinones, Early Head Start Bilingual Family Advocate for Reach Dane; and Sandra Blumer, a professor at Madison College.
“This year’s Annual Scholarship Fundraiser is going to be really nice. A lot of our board members that have been on the board for years have retired so this year we have four new and younger board members whom we hope will continue looking after the WWOCN Scholarship Fund and the many events we have throughout the year,” Cammer says. “These younger board members will be taking on our long-standing mission of empowering women and improving the quality of life in education and health and exercising our political rights. The board is really rejuvenated now and we are excited to have the new board members aboard.”
Cammer first helped to create WWOCN almost 40 years ago when she realized that there were very few women employed in the professional area and the ones that were there were mostly just ‘window dressers.’ Since its inception, its been important to WWOCN that all four major groups of minority women – Asian, American Indian, black and Latino – are involved.
“We are the only organization in the area that is equally shared by all of the four racial-ethnic minority groups. Our board requires that they are equally representative,” Cammer says. “So that’s something that is really nice.”
For more information and to make your reservation for the 2018 Wisconsin Women of Color Network (WWOCN) Annual Scholarship Fundraiser, e-mail [email protected]
