Center For Women Charleston, SC Update

Center For Women, "Helping women succeed every day!"; has moved their office to 129 Cannon St. between President St. and Ashley Avenue downtown Charleston, SC with a refreshed web site at c4women.org and also have a new blog site at Lowcountry Women.

Center For Women is mainly a non-profit organization of Volunteers that strive successfully to help Women and Women with Families.

"Our efforts are working and being recognized! Oprah Winfrey honored the CFW in 2006 with an Oprah’s Angel Network $25,000 grant. The Family Circle Cup Tournament selected the CFW as their charity of choice for three years in a row 2006-2008. The CFW was the winner of the 2005 Award for Excellence in Non-Profit Management by the SC Association of Non-Profit Organizations"

Center For Women offers a variety of events including:

Brown Bag Lunch Series: "Regular midday presentations that provide information on timely topics that affect women."

Entrepreneurial Woman Series: "Practical seminars for women starting, running or growing their own businesses, including panel discussions, networking strategies, and resource and referral information."

Support Groups, "Current 2008 topics include: A Daughter's Grief, Career Transitions, Caregivers, Coping With Chronic Illness, Depression & Anxiety, Finding Balance, Parenting Teenagers, Positive Life Coaching, and Separation & Divorce"

And lots of resources.

I would like to especially encourage and welcome all to visit the Center For Women blog site Lowcountry Women and feel free to participate in the women's topics there, regardless of where you live.

Please see Binding Ink sidebar for Lowcountry Women blog updates!

I first became aware of CFW in 1998, when I was reading the below article in the local newspaper, The Post and Courier:

{Writing contest to show women’s collective portrait

By Dottie Ashley
Of The Post and Courier staff

“The Many Faces of Women” is a writing contest designed to remind the public that the Center For Women is a place of diversity and a resource for all women, regardless of race, age, profession or socioeconomic status.

“People would be surprised by the many faces of women that are served by the center,” says Harriet Smartt, board president of the private, nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women in their private and public lives.
“This contest is a way for women to paint, a collective portrait of a woman – using a pen,” adds Smartt.

Writers who enter the contest are asked to base a short story, essay or poem on a struggle, a choice or an awakening that they imagine may have occurred in the fictional life of one of five women.}

A flyer from The Center For Women stated, “Winners will be announced at the Second Annual Community Recognition Dinner at Charleston Place on January 22, 1998. Keynote speaker: Acclaimed novelist Anne Rivers Siddons. Winners will also receive a $100. cash prize. The five watercolor portraits that provide the inspiration for the contest are named Lucretia, Emma, Endia, Bridgit and Barbara.” The five faces are represented in a watercolor collage by Charleston portrait artist Rhett Thurman and were on display at The Coffee Gallery (Sarah and Patrick Clise) during the local contest:

photo from Dottie Ashley article
.
“The Many Faces of Women Writing Contest” was conceived and coordinated by Mary Elizabeth Feldmann. Another Post and Courier article, “Center reads between lines with women” by Elsa McDowell, incorporated a finely written interview with Feldmann.

The three judges Barbara Hagerty, Nikki Hardin, Constance Pulz selected five winners – one to go with each Thurman portrait. I was one of those winners! We each received the cash prize and two other special gifts from the Center For Women! One, we were invited as Guess to the Second Annual Dinner. Here, CFW acknowledged us for our Writings. In-between we banqueted on an exquisite meal and enjoyed the monumental Community recognitions.

Secondly; Nikki Hardin, Publisher/Editor of Skirt Magazine published our Writings! Each month, one of the five Authors was included in the Skirt addition:

April 1998: Mary Jeffreies, “Emma, The Chain“

May 1998: Jeannette M. Deveaux, “Endia, I am a Voice and I shall be Heard“

June 1998: Julie Pitts, “Bridgit“

July 1998: Harriet Popham Rigney, “Barbara”

August 1998: Jean Michelle Culp, “Lucretia”

My poem begins with Lucretia introducing herself as a black woman:

Lucretia




I am a black woman, or as some would say, “African-American”,

I live in a country where the melting pot has boiled over,

Seeping discrimination and crime.

Dissemination is just ignorance,

Blindness to the fact we all bleed the same color blood.

Crime however; is a disgrace to our race,

Blacks killing blacks, children killing children,

They are no better than those who killed our ancestors.

Meanwhile; our people try and uphold rightful cries,

But, Black Power can not be heard past the blast of gun power,

Gangs shooting gangs for turf that is not even theirs to take,

Innocent bystanders slain in street wars, for what?

Sadden, I take the cloth from my hair and wipe my tears, shouting:

Have our ancestors died in vain?

Do we not realize what our ancestors wounds bled for?

What our ancestors died for, “Freedom”!

Yet, all around are gravely guns that shoot down hope,

Pimps who lay slaves for the desperate and naïve,

Drugs enslaving the body to a lifetime of dependency,

And steel barred cells shackle those who have made themselves slaves.

Afraid, we bolt our doors, board up windows.

Locked inside fear-ridden anxiety,

We become the prisoners in a war that is not ours.

Meanwhile; another child goes hungry, another dies from the cold,

Another job is given to someone else, why?

Because of fear, fear of the criminals in us all.

But criminals are from every race, every color,

Criminals are from every gender, every age.

And it is crime that robs everyone of their heritage,

Crime that strips everyone of their rights,

As we all live in this land not so plentiful, not so free.

Yes, I am a woman, struggling to live in America,

The land of opportunity under siege.

By - Jeane Michelle Culp

Thanks to all who helped in the Center For Women 1998 Writing contest. The event is a memory my heart will forever cherish. An extra Special thanks to my role model Patricia Goodwin.

*I am hoping this post will reach the other four Authors and have them e-mail me, so I may post their Winning Writings also.

Related Post: FLOW (For The Love Of Woman), more Info on the Center For Women