Happy Fall!

Happy Fall!

So many exciting things happen in the fall — return to school, football and volleyball season, harvest, great WIN networking and educational events and our annual grant celebration. This year it was an honor to bestow our two annual grants in the amounts of $92,550.

The University of Nebraska grant went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s College Readiness for Hispanics project. This project intends to close the college achievement gap for Hispanic students so that they can successfully complete a transformative college education. Our nonprofit grant went to the Child Advocacy Center in York. This project will help one of Nebraska’s most vulnerable populations by increasing advocacy capacity. Both are “bold and innovative projects” which address important Nebraska issues. Additionally, both have the capacity to improve the lives of the Nebraskans they will serve.

Thanks to the efforts of all of you, WIN affiliation reached an all-time high of 213. As a consequence, the WIN network is larger and stronger and the opportunities to engage, empower and educate have increased. WIN continues to be a member-driven organization that conducts WIN grant selection, educational programming and member recruitment. Our organization’s success relies on the time and talent of three committees that were ably led this year by Vanessa Denney (Grants), Meg Lauerman (Education) and Emily Allen (Membership). Thank you Vanessa, Meg and Emily! If you are looking to increase your involvement in WIN, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Morgan Holen about serving on one of these committees.

Finally, this is the last newsletter in which I will address you as the WIN chair. It has been an honor to serve you these past two years alongside an outstanding leadership committee with extraordinarily talented committee chairs, and to assist with the transition from one excellent director (thank you, Ellie Clinch) to another equally talented director (thank you, Morgan Holen). I also want to thank our partner, the University of Nebraska Foundation, for their continued support of WIN.

I am pleased that Meg Lauerman has agreed to chair this wonderful, impactful organization and I look forward to continued involvement with each and every one of you.

Many thanks for the leadership opportunity,

Susan Fritz