WELCOME

Remarks By Carol Brey-Casiano, Chair, Power of the Purse and Tina Yamada, Co-Chair, Power of the Purse

We have designed tonight in response to the need in El Paso for a Women’s Fund that focuses on building the capacity for women to increase their earning potential. The Women’s Fund is about women investing in women. We purposefully created this organization based on the findings we reported in our needs assessment completed with the support of the YWCA El Paso del Norte Region and the University of Texas at El Paso. Thank you so much to the YWCA and UTEP for supporting this vision and helping us get to this day.

There are over 80 women’s funds across the country. Our fund is different than the others out there because we are funding and investing in individuals and building networks to support lasting change for women in our community. We are excited to build partnerships with our local non-profit organizations that will refer women to us with whom they have worked for a period of six months. Our work is meant to fill a gap in what has been offered to women in our community. We look forward to increasing our capacity to serve area non-profits and the women they serve, and we thank our local Executive Directors for their support. Tonight we will unveil our interactive website that will help us build a new network for women in El Paso. This is an exciting opportunity for women to log on and feel connected to the vital resources that impact our lives and those of our children. Our discussion forums will help facilitate positive discussions about what is good about El Paso and the ways in which we can help make it better together.