Today We Celebrate the Power of Women and Girls”

Five hundred females who get stuff done in New Haven lunched in the Omni ballroom Wednesday to celebrate women and girls” — and a 10-year-old charitable fund that’s reaching $1 million.The luncheon made for good networking, too. Two movers and shakers in the housing field, attorney Rolan Joni Young of Berchem, Moses & Devlin, and Carla Weil of the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, were spotted at a table near the back.

The luncheon marked the 10th anniversary of the Community Fund for Women & Girls. Run out of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the fund has made grants to over 40 not-for-profit groups that work on issues important to women.

Those grants has supported everything from bus passes for job seekers and babysitter training to health care, the arts, quilting nad workshops in self-esteem, noted the event’s keynote speaker, the actress Jane Alexander.

Grassroots organizations … make a difference one by one,” Alexander said. What is a community but connecting from one to another until we form a circle together or a many-pointed star” with infinite” points outward.

Kim Healey of the NewAlliance Foundation, which has become one of the top players in local philanthropy, spoke to the gathering.

Today we celebrate the power of women and girls,” said TV anchor Ann Nyberg, the event’s emcee. Go out and network, girls. We know how to do that, OK?”

To learn more about the fund and to contribute, click here.

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.