The GFWC Nevis Area Women’s Club was one of five clubs worldwide to receive a Community Impact Award.
The award, which came with a $2,500 check, was for the club’s work to create the 2022 Empowering Women Resilience Conference and was presented at the International Convention for the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in Chicago on July 1.
Kathy Carney was one of the Nevis club members who attended the conference.
“There were five awards given,” she said. “One was an international award and four awards were to clubs here in the U.S. This award is given for making a major impact in a community.”
The international award went to a club in Brazil that bought a house and turned it into a job training center for youth.
Empowering women up north
Carney said the women’s conference started with a big idea.
“The need that we really focused on and continue to hold close to us is rural women and the lack of opportunities for personal and professional development compared to metro areas,” she said. “We also offered scholarships for people who weren’t able to pay.”
Carney is the club’s fundraising chair and grant writer.
“The first year, we raised around $40,000 for the conference,” she said. “We’ve raised over $50,000 for this fall’s conference.”
Ann Bancroft was the keynote speaker at the first conference. This year’s keynote speaker will be NCAA champion gymnast Maggie Nichols, the recipient of 2019 NCAA Inspiration Award and a sexual assault survivor.
The theme of the conference is “A Hopeful Response to Life’s Challenges.”
Also on the program are Dr. Emily Sargent, an enrolled member of White Earth who specializes in assessing, diagnosing and treating traumatic stress; self-defense instructor and motivational speaker Mariah Prussia, and humorous motivational speaker Amy Dee.
The conference will be Friday, Sept. 13 at the Northern Lights Casino in Walker.
There are 60 scholarships available to cover the registration fee. Send an email to Carney at jandkcarney@paulbunyan.net for more information.
Retired and wanting to serve
“I worked in workforce development for the state and in nonprofits for 40 years,” Carney said. “I’m retired, which is true of most of our members. They bring skills from jobs they had through their work lives and use those skills to do good in their community.”
The club recently changed its name to the Nevis Area Women’s Club. “We want women outside Nevis to know they can join too,” Carney said.
Kay James also attended the conference in Chicago.
She was the president of the state GFWC Women’s Club 2012-14. Although she moved to southern Minnesota a year ago, she has kept her membership with the Nevis club, where she has been active for over 10 years.
“I was on the committee for planning the first Empowering Women conference,” she said. “After I moved, I decided to keep my membership in Nevis. I want to keep those connections with those dear, dear Nevis women.”
She said being at that first Empowering Women Resilience Conference was special.
“Women were coming up to me and thanking me so much for our club having done this event,” she said. “They said it was something they really needed. I’m so proud of our club for keeping it going.”
She shares information about the conference with other groups. “Other clubs could do this, even clubs in other countries,” she said. “There were clubs from at least 10 countries represented at the conference in Chicago.”
Meetings are held at noon the third Tuesday of the month at Bethany Lutheran Church in Nevis. The club also welcomes volunteers to help with club projects and fundraisers.
History of the Women’s Club
Carney said the GFWC Women’s Club started in the late 1800s. “Women were looking for a social outlet so they could get together and do good in their communities,” she said. “It’s probably the oldest women’s group worldwide.”
The Nevis club is over 100 years old and currently has 28 members.
Two of the biggest community projects the Nevis Club has done are the pollinator garden and pollinator highway. Other causes they support include the Akeley-Nevis Food Shelf, the Akeley Regional Community Center and Emergency Shelter and the Hubbard County Developmental Achievement Center.
Lorie Skarpness has lived in the Park Rapids area since 1997 and has been writing for the Park Rapids Enterprise since 2017. She enjoys writing features about the people and wildlife who call the north woods home.
