I hope you all have weathered the storm without any major impacts, we will be sure to check in to assess needs and share them.

There is much to share this month as we have had successful events, igniting important advocacy efforts, committee meetings and planning. I am grateful that our Career Assistance Grants effort and event were such a success! Thank you to all who were involved in making that happen: Carolyn Kurtz and Belinda Wilson (Co-Chairs),  Rachelle Bedke, Ruth Bell, Susan Bucklew, Moira Burke, Maureen Butler, Deborrah Cannizzaro, L’Tanya Evans, Susanna Fenhagen, Zoe Gustafson, Denise Jordan, Paddy Moses, Bemetra Simmons, Mimi Stamps, Lisa Robbins and Joan Zinober.

Our Community Action Committee has been hard at work in two key areas:

• We submitted this letter to the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners in an effort to advocate for not cutting funding for affordable housing. Unfortunately, the commission voted to cut the funding from $10MM to $2MM. Thank you to the more than 30 Athena women who signed on to this effort.
• Our board also reviewed and approved this letter to be sent to media outlets in support of the Hillsborough County School District’s Millage Referendum Proposal. This was shared with local media for publication, and we will have more information at our next membership luncheon. In the meantime, please read the letter and contact me or the committee if you have any questions. If you want to learn more about the referendum, please view this informative video created in the school district.

Continuing the advocacy front and supporting our position statements. We hope you will join us at our next membership meeting where we will be learning more about Amendment 4 and what will be on the ballot this coming November.

I am excited to share that Karen Arnold has agreed to be our inaugural Emerita Chair. We will be meeting this month to discuss the role and how to best serve our emerita members of Athena.

Finally, soon you will be able to opt into text messaging updates from Athena! Stay tuned for the details on how to sign up. We will be using this method of communication for events and major communications. You will not be receiving an overwhelming number of updates, we promise!

On a personal note, I wanted to share that while we put forth our best effort, my husband and I missed the qualifying time at mile twenty of our marathon by only 10 minutes and had to end early. I am still so very proud of us for the effort as running 20 miles with nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain was a huge challenge, especially given this was our first marathon. I always enjoy the experience of pushing myself outside my comfort zone and learn so much from these experiences, especially when I fail. It is not the destination; it is the journey. While it would have been amazing to finish, what I learned about pushing myself and all the training that I did make this a success. We are already signed up for our flat marathon in Florida to reach that 26.2 in December of this year.

I look forward to seeing many of you very soon!

Jessica