President’s Message By Angela Scarlett

Dear fellow AAUW Members,

I sit here on a Tuesday night, trying to capture how lovely our meeting was on Sept. 17! Members such as Barbara Smith, Kathy Schrumpf, Jane Cooley and Barbara Smith brought snacks and helped set up the room. Sandi Schoenman greeted folks at the door.

Kamariah Alexander

One of our scholarship recipients, Kamariah Alexander, spoke movingly

Marissa Floyd

about returning to college after becoming a mom. In contrast, our NCWSSL winner, Marissa Floyd, spoke about the diverse offerings of leadership training she could access at NCWSSL.

Our guest speakers, Jay Cohen and Maiya De La Rosa, both from Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, spoke to the challenges for women and pregnant persons in a post-Dobbs world. They framed the policy opportunities in

Planned Parenthood

California and the practical matter of providing reproductive health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income people.

It warmed my heart to see many of our members present and engaged with issues that impact our mission. I want to see more folks engaged as this year rolls along. To this end, I am setting up a Phonevite account. What’s a Phonevite account? Well, it’s a handy low-cost tool that sends our robocall reminders to members’ phones to remind them of upcoming events. AAUW California suggested this as an option for doing outreach with members who don’t use email very often. Please reach out to me if you have thoughts about this platform.

I hope to see everyone online for our October program, the CA Ballot Forum!

Cheers,
Angela