KAREN RIELEY
Published in the Autumn 2019 issue of Carolina Mountain Life – pp. 118-119
Four hundred fifty women and four men generated much excitement in Appalachian State University’s Holmes Convocation Center during the 2019 Power of the Purse Luncheon on June 27, the kind of positive energy that improves the lives of women and girls in the High Country. As the largest annual fundraiser of the Women’s Fund of The Blue Ridge, the luncheon raises funds that are granted annually to nonprofits providing vital services in Ashe, Avery and Watauga counties.
Guests bid on a wide range of items—landscaping services, acupuncture, entertainment venues, pottery, art, electronics, purses and more—donated by nearly 100 sponsors. Last year, ticket, merchandise and silent auction sales and monetary donations given at the event raised $60,000, according to Karen Marinelli, who was named executive director of the Women’s Fund of the Blue Ridge in 2018.
The fund granted a total of $103,000 to 10 area nonprofits including Community Care Clinic, Creative Peacemaker Center, F.A.R.M. Café and Western Youth Network in Watauga County; Hospitality House and Hunger and Health Coalition in Ashe, Avery and Watauga counties; OASIS in Watauga and Avery counties; and Reaching Avery Ministry, Shoes for Kids and Volunteer Avery County in Avery County.
“With this year’s luncheon attracting the largest audience in our history, we hope to fund more nonprofits with larger grants,” Marinelli said. “We have started up our outreach program again to attract new members and have a new membership program beginning soon.”
“The nonprofit has changed a lot since 2006,” said board member Josette Glover. “We now have an advisory board of previous board members and are attracting well-connected, philanthropic women from outside the High Country.”
Following lunch, guests heard from child safety activist, author and abduction victim Elizabeth Smart. Her abduction in 2002, when she was 14, was one of the most followed child abduction cases in recent history. Her captors controlled her by threatening to kill her and her family if she tried to escape. She was safely returned to her family nine grueling months later.
Smart has become an advocate for change related to child abduction, recovery programs and national legislation. She founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation and has helped promote the national AMBER Alert, Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act and other legislation to help prevent abductions.
Smart shared thoughts from her recently released book, Where There’s Hope, about what it takes to overcome trauma, find the strength to move on and reclaim one’s life. She emphasized the importance of support from family and others in a person’s moving forward. Even given the many rape, abuse and emotional torture that she endured while imprisoned, “It was always so much more comforting to know that God was on my side than to be alone, so it was easier to believe than not.”
“It is extremely empowering for me to see a big room full of women helping others,” Smart said.
Jenny Miller, former director of High Country United Way, started Power of the Purse after attending a similar event at another United Way. “Tricia Wilson told me about the event, attended it with me and then told me we needed to make this fundraiser happen in the High Country, too,” Miller said. “So, what do you do when you want something done? You put 10 women around the table.”.
The Women’s Fund of the Blue Ridge was formed in 2014 when High Country Women’s Fund (established in 2006) and another philanthropic nonprofit, Appalachian Women’s Fund, merged. It is sustained by a group of women philanthropists who want to make a positive impact on the lives of women and their families in the High Country.
“Women bind together and help each other,” Miller said in asking the event’s guests to contribute to the cause.
Miller shared the story of one woman, Wendy, to whom the Women’s Fund was able to bring hope and dignity. Wendy was a rising senior at Watauga High School. She had a two-month-old child and was living with an abusive family. In addition to trying to finish school, she worked at two minimum-wage jobs. She feared she would have to drop out of school to take care of her child because she couldn’t afford day care. With the support of a nonprofit funded by the Women’s Fund, however, Wendy stayed in school, graduated, left her abusive family, got a job at Appalachian State University, could afford day care and an apartment and received four years of tuition-free education at App State.
Miller encouraged guests to consider contributing $10 a month, which covers an apartment rental deposit; $25 a month for heating oil; $50 a month for three months of day care, car repairs or gas; or $100 a month to provide tuition-free, books-free education at a state university.
At this year’s event, an anonymous donor gave a match challenge of $10,000 if someone at the event would make a $10,000 five-year matching pledge. Board member and owner of Bickers Consulting Group Mary Bickers rose to the challenge.
Bickers of Atlanta attended the Power of the Purse luncheon for the first time in 2017. She said then, “I had lunch with some friends up here, and they were involved with the Women’s Fund. I’ve heard about it for years and am sold on it because it is all about helping women. It’s a great organization.”
“We’re becoming a highly professional organization capable of making a significant difference in the quality of life of all women and girls living in the High Country,” Women’s Fund board member Josette Glover said.
To learn more about the Women’s Fund of the Blue Ridge, visit http://www.womensfundoftheblueridge.org/.
Karen J. Rieley 