Dear Athena Sisters,

My heart is heavy this month for many reasons: weathering back-to-back storms and all our members who were severely impacted to the loss of two incredible women. This has been a season of loss, grief, and hardship.

Our hearts go out to the friends and family of Adelaide and Rhonda. May their memories and impact in our community be something we hold onto and continue to be inspired by. We would also like to put our arms around our members recovering from the impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. To this end, we will be holding a virtual event to share, listen, connect to resources, and support one another. We are trying to secure a date that works for those impacted and those who can offer expertise and support. Please also remember that we have this spreadsheet if you have need or have support that you can provide.

I held my first President’s Advisory Council meeting, and it was wonderful. Thank you to all the incredible women who offered up their advice and recommendations on how to support our members at this time as well as ideas for increasing engagement opportunities. One of the first recommendations we are trying out will be streaming our next luncheon live via Facebook Live for our members only. We continue to seek out ways to innovate and connect our sisters.

Not only have we been managing through stress and hardships of disasters, we also have significant choices to make at the ballot box next week (or this week, depending on when you send). Here is a link for an overview of the initiatives on the ballot and our Community Action Committee’s review addressed by our position statements.

We have several ways to connect and spend quality time together this next month. I hope to see you at our November membership luncheon, which is going to be a great one to review the impact the results have on our position statements. Following that we have our bonus event on November 16th to cheer on the Tampa Bay Sun and support our very own Deborrah Cannizzaro who is opening with the national anthem! Finally, I also hope you save the date for our holiday party on Sunday, December 8th, more details will be forthcoming, but it will be one not to miss!

Thank you to so many of you who have supported one another during these times and supported our community. We will continue to bring you opportunities to give back and have an impact.

As always, please let me know if there is anything I can do to support any of you!

All my best,

Jessica