Spokane’s Women Helping Women Fund will hold its 30th annual fundraiser next week. The organization has become one of Spokane’s premier granting agencies for local programs that benefit women and children.
The May 17 event won’t be a luncheon, but an evening billed as An Iconic Night at the Fox, featuring Shana Knizhnik [cuh-NISH-nick] and Irin Carmon [EAR-un CAR-mon], authors of "Notorious RBG," the book about the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“RBG actually officiated both of their weddings so I think that it’s going to be kind of a peek behind the curtain into this woman that changed the lives of so many women in our country," said Heather Hamlin, the executive director of the Women Helping Women Fund.
Money raised from the event will fund the grants her organization hands out every spring. This year, she says, Women Helping Women distributed about $350,000, a small percentage of the more than $1 million in requests that Hamlin says the agency received from local non-profits last fall.
About 20 local programs are receiving grants this year.
“We award large transformational grants to non-profits that help fill the funding gaps that they have and we also give out scholarships to young mothers that are juggling the costs of tuition and child care," Hamlin said.
"About three years ago, in 2019, we also rolled out data and research, so we partner with the health district and about 100 other stakeholders to produce the ‘State of Women and Children in Spokane County’ report, which is really a baseline for how our community is faring," she said.
Hamlin says tickets are still available for the Women Helping Women Fund event on May 17.
