When my youngest daughter, Annabelle, balked at taking a test to see if she qualified for the gifted/talented program at her new school, I let it slide. “What if I don’t pass?” she fretted. “That would be horrible. I don’t Read More
Category: Stories
Read heartfelt stories of resilience and success from women and girls transforming their lives with Soroptimist’s support.
Career Diaries Part 1: Hitting Rock Bottom
It was a sunny late spring afternoon at the park. The birds were singing and children were gleefully darting across the baseball diamond. I, on the other hand, was racing across the grass, my designer heels sinking into the soil Read More
Motivation Lost and Found: My Story of “Failing Forward”
Failing and getting back up is a normal part of life, but no one likes the idea of failing—I can personally vouch for that. We all wish we could learn lessons in ways other than the harsh one, but failure Read More
Live Your Dream Awards Stories: Jermira
Thanks to the volunteer judges who helped us score applications in December, we’ve finally finished selecting our next batch of Live Your Dream Awards recipients. These 40 remarkable women will each receive a money award to help them attain their education Read More
My Visit to the D.C. National Woman’s Party Monument and Museum of Women in the Arts
Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay. – Simone de Beauvoir January 22nd was a chilly, rainy, and downright gloomy day in DC – the day after hundreds of thousands of women marched on Read More
A New Lens on Being in Love
How many times have you honestly been in love? I mean, honestly. For me, it’s once. I met my boyfriend when we were fresh out of college at the age 21. At 22, we officially decided to begin a relationship Read More
In the Fight to End Domestic Violence, My Voice Will Always Be Loud
“I can’t show them to the police – he says he’ll destroy my family.” Photos of a bruised face and red, nearly broken fingers. Concealer covered the marks he left in shades of blue, purple, and green. The National Coalition Read More
I Should Have Done Something
To this day, I continue to think about what I should have done that day in that restaurant. Yet, I just sat there staring at this young woman, frozen with disbelief and hesitation. She had dark lifeless eyes and, in Read More
Connecting Education and Opportunity: My Observations Overseas
I grew up comfortably on the upper edge of the middle class. Privilege was the filter on the lens through which I viewed the world. For me, education was available, and opportunity abundant. Still, I realized most people traveled a Read More
The Words I Needed to Hear
One evening over dinner, when I was 16 years old, my family’s conversation took an unusual turn. There was nothing remarkable about the circumstances to that point. As usual, I was planted in my seat, all eyeshadow and angst, thinking Read More