Take Office Partners with The New York Junior League to Teach High School Girls About Advocating For Their Communities
Pictured: Panelists Shadawn Smith, Danielle Mowery, Edda Santiago, Natalia Trujillo, andTimi Lewis, Members of the New York Junior League’s Social Equity Committee, and Take Office founder Jeri Powell.
On Saturday, April 1, 2023, Take Office partnered with the New York Junior League’s Social Equity Committee to host a civics workshop for high school girls from community partners SCAN-Harbor and Rising Ground, teaching them how to advocate for issues within their communities.
The workshop started with a discussion of issues currently affecting the local communities by prestigious panel members (all graduates of the Take Office program & pictured above) Shadawn Smith (Community Board 10 Member for Central Harlem), Danielle Mowery (Community Advocate), Edda Santiago (VP and Corporation Counsel- Covenant House International; Community Board 12 Member), Natalia Trujillo (Global Philanthropy Senior Associate, JP Morgan Chase), and Timi Lewis (Senior Director of Communications and Engagement for the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School).
Participants then broke into small groups, where they worked with panelists and members of the Social Equity Committee to identify issues impacting them and their communities. The workshop culminated in presentations by each of the groups, in which they described the issues in their communities and different solutions that could be enacted by their local political representatives.
The Social Equity Committee also secured donations for student goodie bags in the form of backpacks, each fully stuffed with school supplies, the majority of which were graciously donated. Each girl attending the event, as well as each Take Office panelist, received a beautiful floral arrangement donated by Bow Bridge Blooms to take home as a gift.
Founded in 1901, the New York Junior League is an organization of women whose mission is to advance women’s leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration, and training. Powered by 2,000 women volunteers, the NYJL works with more than 60 community-based organizations to advance children’s social-emotional learning and to provide life skills programs to youth and adults who are navigating periods of difficult transition. Bringing their diverse experiences and talents, trained NYJL volunteers engage women and children in health, education, and arts workshops specially customized to their needs.
The Social Equity Committee of the NYJL was founded in 2021 in the wake of the societal reckoning taking place in the U.S. and around the world. t is the mission of the Social Equity Committee to develop policy and programming through research, education, training, and engagement related to social justice change in New York. Members take a multi-pronged approach to work both internally and externally in identifying, debating, iterating, and refining proposals for educational initiatives, policy priorities, and collaborations that move the NYJL’s community impact forward in innovative ways.
This was the first collaborative workshop between Take Office and the NYJL, and hopefully one of many more to come.
