Women-Helping-Women (WHW) is a group that Laurie Wick started in 2008 influenced by hearing Nicholas Kristof and Sheryle WuDunn speak about their book ‘Half the Sky’.
We have grown to125 women, mostly from East Shore but not all. Pre-pandemic we always had at least one global project and one local project benefiting girls and women. We were very active with a group called Baracat, who built schools for girls in Afghanistan. We helped pay for supplies and teachers’ salaries. Unfortunately, these schools have either shut down or gone underground since the Taliban took over the country. We have partnered with our Muslim sisters from the Muslim Assoc. of Puget Sounds (MAPS) in Redmond on many wonderful projects.
We also have supported The Sophia Way homeless women’s shelter from the beginning, providing meals and financial support. We currently have some volunteers doing this important work. They cook/buy a meal once/month to deliver to the Bellevue shelter and could always use more help.
For the three years preceding the pandemic we were very actively involved in Lake Hills Elementary, which is located about one mile from East Shore. This school is Title One, which means 60% of its kids are low income. There are at least 25 different languages spoken here in addition to the Spanish Immersion.
Lake Hills tutoring is back! There are two 2nd Grade and one 1st Grade classroom that want volunteer reading tutors. More if we have Spanish speaking volunteers.
Some of you participated in this program pre-Covid when we had tutors in the 2nd grade classrooms for 3 1/2 years. It is not a hard job and there will be training in September. We have made such a huge difference in the lives of these children. Comparison testing done between Lake Hills tutored children and non-tutored children from another nearby low income school definitely showed that. This is a very fun and rewarding volunteer role and only requires about an hour/week of your time.
by Laurie Wick, Chair