June 22, 2011 Dear Community Partner: I am pleased to invite you to join Washington Area Women’s Foundation and Discovery Communications for a listening session on the status of women and girls in Montgomery County on Monday, July 11 from 9:00 – 11:00 am. Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards will be our special guest. This session will take place at Discovery (1 Discovery Place, Silver Spring, MD 20910). In October 2010, Washington Area Women’s Foundation released a new report, 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area. An update to our 2003 report, Portrait Project 2010 provides in-depth data on the status of women and girls in our region. The report finds that women and girls of Montgomery County face many challenges. For example, Nearly 24,000 female-headed households with children (23,985) live in Montgomery County; 20 percent of these families are living in poverty. The median family income of female-headed households with children in Montgomery County is just over $47,000. This is nearly 39 percent less than the self-sufficiency standard of $65,137 in the county for a woman with an infant and a preschooler. Almost one-quarter (24 percent) of women in Montgomery County have a high school diploma or less. The purpose of this listening session is to share some of the report’s key findings and to engage in a dialogue about we collectively can work to address the challenges facing the county’s women and girls. Please respond to Latricia Allen at programs@wawf.org by Friday, July 8 if you are able to attend. I hope that you can join us for what will be an important and engaging conversation. Sincerely,
Nicola Goren President