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St. Cloud Branch

President : Amy Dinkel-VanValkenburg email 320-253-2552

ST. CLOUD Best of the Year

The St. Cloud area branch is proud that the majority of our programs are mission based. They included a presentation by Dr. Mary Edwards, St. Cloud State University (SCSU) professor of economics and local AAUW member, on “Trends Regarding Gender Equity in the St. Cloud Labor Market.” We were pleased that a class from the women’s studies department at SCSU joined us for Dr. Edward’s talk.

We heard about issues that returning women veterans face today for our meeting on Veteran’s Day. The director of the Women’s Veterans’ Program at St. Cloud Veterans’ Hospital shared the many issues that each woman vet has to face upon return to civilian life. Two of our members shared their stories of their World War II military service. They were later featured in a newspaper article.

We were honored to hear Dr. Eddah Mutua-Kombo from the African Women’s Peace Initiatives speak at our May meeting about interconnectedness among women worldwide. Other mission-based programs included a talk on “Where Are Women Now?” and another on “Developing Physically Active Girls: Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions” by Dr. Nicole LaVoi, a St. Cloud native and associate director of the Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota.

To foster more visibility in the community the Fine Arts special interest group sponsors a scholarship at the high school art competition held at the Historic Paramount Art Gallery. We also sponsor two prizes for the Art A’La Carte Show. We are in partnership with the theater providing ushers, tour guides, and other support. We hold one meeting at the theater. Members of the executive board were given business cards for visibility. Other members also have access to general business cards.

We have an expansive literature group with 25 members. Plans are to split to accommodate more interested members. We also served at a reception, held at the new public library, for a group of Slovenian authors and had a booth and refreshments at the SCSU campus’s “Take Back the Night” event.

A successful fundraiser for the past four years has been our EF Golf Tournament, held in late August. We have raised more than $8,000 from the tournaments. The annual used book sale supporting LAF took a new twist this year when organizers put drop boxes at local woman-owned businesses. We hold the sale at the senior center and open it up to the public for two months.

This year also saw the beginning of our Pay Equity Award. Nominations are taken for businesses that promote a corporate culture of respect, participation, and growth. Thelen Advertising was the first recipient of the honor and was featured in a newspaper article.

Our chapter chose to grant funding for the “Diva Days Program,” a gender and diversity study, held at the St. Cloud Technical College for rural area sixth-grade girls to expose them to non-traditional career choices. The girls are bused to St. Cloud and spend a fun and interesting day learning about different careers