Quarterly Meeting 
Bishop Connare Center, Route 30, Greensburg
(Note: Address Change For Meeting)
 11:30a.m. Friday, October 24, 2008

It will be WCCWF Fifth Anniversary in October. 

Mark your calendars now for our Holiday Party tentatively scheduled for Friday, December 5.

We want to thank Shara Saveikis, Agency Administrator for the Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau, for her presentation to us at the July meeting. Our October 24th meeting speaker will be Faye Rosatti, Vice-President from First Commonwealth Bank, who will speak to us about “Avoiding Predatory Lending” which is critical in these difficult financial times.  Please consider asking a friend or business associate to our October 24th meeting so they can learn what our WCCWF. It is one of the “best kept secrets” in Westmoreland County!

The next meeting of the Westmoreland County Commission for Women and Families will be  Friday, October 24th, 2008 starting at 11:30a.m., at Bishop Connare Center, Route 30, Greensburg PA (Note: Address Change For Meeting).  It will be WCCWF Fifth Anniversary in October.   Please mail your check, payable to the WCCWF, for $12.00 per attendee to Carol Adams, 4088 Hyland Road, Jeannette, PA 15644.
 

Mission Statement

It is the mission of the Westmoreland County Commission for Women and Families (WCCWF) to foster leadership; provide awareness of existing services; promote development of resources; and advocate equal access to such resources in order to enhance the lives of women and families.

Member List

To register or for more information please contact:

The Salvation Army of Westmoreland County is in need of Volunteers

The Salvation Army of Westmoreland County is in need of volunteers this holiday season for our annual Christmas Red Kettle stands. Families, businesses, service clubs, church groups, high school activity groups along with individuals are essential in helping to raise much needed funds for our local community programs, including after school children & youth mentoring programs, emergency food, housing and clothing assistance, supper clubs and lighthouse lunch programs along with emergency disaster relief support and many more valuable services and programs benefiting children, adults and senior citizens. Please consider donating a few hours of your time this holiday season to help a worthy cause.

To volunteer anywhere within The Westmoreland County Region, please contact Sherry Sanner-Bolha, Westmoreland County Resource Development Manager at 724-216-8033 or  sherry_bolha@use.salvationarmy.org. 

40 Assets Note Cards Available

If you need more packages of these wonderful note cards, designed by our own Emmy DePolo, please contact Julie Cawoski at ParentWISE – 724-837-5410. The cards come in packs of four at a cost of $5.00 and make wonderful gifts for teachers, friends and neighbors. Last chance before Christmas…plan to pick up several packs at the October 24 meeting.
 

The ParentWISE Program of Family Services will be offering classes and workshops

The ParentWISE Program of Family Services will be offering classes and workshops. For more information and what classes and workshops are offered Click Here or contact: Julie Cawoski at 724-837-5410 ext 701 or cawoskij@fswp.org. 

Westmoreland Health Access Network

Join us for our meeting at to be held at Westmoreland Community Action, 226 South Maple Avenue, Greensburg, PA 15601 from 12:00 - 1:30p.m. on Thursday, November 6th.  FREE LUNCH AND DRINKS WILL BE PROVIDED!  As many of you already know, this is a curious time for health care reform in our state. The Governor and the Senate Leadership have continued to meet over the last couple of weeks, but time is very close to running out on this chapter of the Pennsylvania health care debate. Since we are meeting after the election we will have an opportunity to recap the developments in Harrisburg as well as how we can make sure that health care reform isn’t forgotten about once the newly elected officials take office. As always, please forward this invitation along to your lists and feel free to invite as many people as possible from the community to join us. Please email me back or call the number below if you are able to attend. I look forward to meeting with a large group this November! The more people we can turn out, the better we can discuss how people in Westmoreland County can work together to help make sure that we all have access to the quality, affordable health care every Pennsylvanian deserves. Thank you so much and I look forward to talking to you all again soon. 

Ted Zimmer, Community Organizer - Phone: 412-456-1877 Ext:202 or Fax: 412-456-1096.

Angela’s Angels

Dressing Your Dream

Our acts of kindness help protect a less fortunate young woman’s self respect. Angela’s Angels is a non-profit project whose purpose is to provide prom wear to locale economically disadvantaged junior and senior high school girls.

For More Information Visit:  www.angelasangels.org.
 

Chairperson’s Message

It is hard to believe that it has been three months since our last newsletter. The summer went by so quickly and now we are beginning the last quarter of 2008.

I want to thank Shara Saveikis, Agency Administrator for the Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau, for her presentation to us at the July meeting. Our October 24th meeting speaker will be Faye Rosatti, Vice-President from First Commonwealth Bank, who will speak to us about “Avoiding Predatory Lending” which is critical in these difficult financial times. We hope you plan to attend and a reservation form is attached to the newsletter for your use. Please consider asking a friend or business associate to our October 24th meeting so they can learn what our WCCWF. It is one of the “best kept secrets” in Westmoreland County!

For those of you who attended the Fifth Annual PA Governor’s Conference for Women on October 2nd, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. We had two reserved tables of twenty women for the luncheon and twenty-two of you took the bus we reserved from Mountain View Tourways for the conference. It worked well and I want to thank all who paid and rode the bus for being timely at the very early hour of 6:00 am in the morning and then after the conference.

We were a Supporting Organization for the conference and received publicity in all printed material and the Program Book distributed to more than 5,000 women who attended. The theme this year was “ The Next Chapter of You” and the break-out sessions were coordinated with topics around the theme. Keynote Speaker including Naomi Tutu, advocate for peace and human rights; Nancy Brinker, the founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, named after her only sister, Susan, who died from breast cancer. Ms Brinker is also a Diplomat and Philanthropist.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth Edwards the luncheon keynote speaker was ill and could not attend, but the panel of ladies including Liz Smith, Julia Reed and Judith Martin from WOWOWO.com, The  Women on the Web, did a fine job filling in for Mrs. Edwards. Next year the conference will be back in Philadelphia, so I hope many of you will plan to attend.

Remember October is the Fifth Anniversary of our Westmoreland County Commission for Women and Families and we plan to celebrate at our December 5th Holiday Party. Look for future details from Angela Rose-O’Brien about this celebration. In speaking with Leslie Stiles, the Executive Director of the PA Commission for Women and her staff person, Christine Anderson, we are one of the most active of the various women’s commissions state-wide and they are very proud of our success. All of you should also be very proud of that fact!!! Keep up the great work.

If you have not registered for the “Improving the Status of Women in Westmoreland County” Summit on October 14th at Seton Hill University, please consider registering. It is free and you can go to the United Way’s website and click on the Status of Women section on the right, and register. Their website is www.unitedway4u.org Our WCCWF is one of the sponsoring organizations and has been involved with planning this summit for over a year. You won’t want to miss it as you will receive the hard-copy report of the status of women in our county.

I hope to see you all at the October 24th meeting. Enjoy the beautiful colors of the Fall Season until then!!


Mary Catherine Motchar - Chairperson