Dear Members of Redlands AAUW and Interested Readers:

 My name is Sue Wallace and I have the pleasure of serving as president of the Redlands branch of AAUW for the 2020-21 year.  This will be a challenging year for our organization and so many others.  Our interest groups and service projects, for the most part, are centered around close social activities and we will have to make adjustments to meet the guidelines for COVID-19 social distancing.  Our mission is to empower women to attain leadership roles both in the workplace and in their community.  Working together with other branches in California and throughout the nation our goal is to achieve gender equality in education, economic security, and leadership.  

Locally we have worked through our STEM projects to broaden the vision of our young female students to aspire to reach out into careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  At this point we may not be able to do this in our normal way of providing a day long seminar for 8th grade girls to hear the experiences of women leaders in those fields in an open social forum.  However, we will work together to provide that opportunity even if it is an online experience.  We will be adjusting our normal fundraising activities to raise funds to provide scholarship opportunities to students who plan on expanding their education beyond high school.  Our many interest groups which involve social, educational, and service opportunities for our members will be finding ways to alter their programs so that we can continue to social distance.  This will require changes but I know that our membership has many innovative ideas on how to make these adjustments.

Normally our September branch meeting is a time when we highlight our service projects and interest groups and invite women who would like to join the Redlands AAUW branch to join us as our guests for the meeting.  Our September meeting will definitely be online but we would like to invite any prospective new members to contact us so that we can provide you with a zoom invitation to our initial meeting of the year.  Despite the restrictions we will have to meet because of COVID-19, we still plan on moving forward in our goal of empowering women.

If you are interested in joining AAUW, or have questions, please contact us at membership@aauw-redlands-ca.org pr follow us on our facebook page, AAUW Redlands.

Sue Wallace

President, AAUW Redlands branch