Greater than 50 Higher Keys Enterprise and Skilled Girls (BPW) members and friends gathered on the Crooked Palm Cabana in Tavernier on Might 21 for the group’s annual assembly and set up of its 2025-26 board of administrators.
In the course of the occasion, the native girls’s group additionally awarded near $6,000 in scholarships to native working girls and introduced a $10,000 donation to the Monroe County Home Abuse Shelter in assist of its new emergency shelter mission.
Scholarships awarded to 5 native girls
5 scholarships, starting from $775 to $1,500, have been introduced to Higher Keys working girls. Two of the 5 recipients certified for a brand new BPW empowered girl scholarship, which requires a course of research that helps the BPW public coverage platform. The platform’s three planks are financial fairness, entry to healthcare and equitable voting rights for ladies.
The empowered girl scholarships have been awarded to:
- Monetary adviser Alissa Reckard, to pursue a behavioral monetary adviser designation that can equip her to raised perceive how feelings and behavioral patterns have an effect on her shoppers’ monetary selections.
- Registered nurse Kerry Biondoletti, to pursue a household nurse practitioner program with the objective of increasing high-quality well being care choices for households in our group.
As well as, three grownup girls’s scholarships have been awarded to:
- Insurance coverage skilled Mary Houston, to pursue an affiliate in insurance coverage account administration designation from the Florida Affiliation of Insurance coverage Brokers.
- Renee Parker, to help in transitioning to a brand new profession as a licensed X-ray technologist by means of a program at Miami-Dade School.
- Firefighter and paramedic Mia Ruiz, to pursue an affiliate diploma in emergency medical providers on the School of the Florida Keys.
“We acquired so many robust purposes this spring,” stated Christina Teasley, Higher Keys BPW scholarship chair. “Happily, due to our endowment fund on the Group Basis of the Florida Keys, we had virtually twice as a lot cash to award this time than ever earlier than. It’s an honor to have the ability to empower so many native girls to attain their profession targets.”
BPW donation to sponsor enterprise middle at new DAS shelter
The $10,000 donation to DAS will fund a enterprise middle at a brand new emergency shelter serving the Center and Higher Keys. The enterprise middle will present a devoted work house, laptop gear and provides that shelter residents can use to use for jobs, discover housing and safe different assets to assist them transfer ahead. The cash was raised by means of the group’s “Give Hope a Residence” grassroots marketing campaign.
“Our members and supporters actually got here by means of with dozens of small and huge donations to assist us attain our objective,” stated Patricia Milian, president of Higher Keys BPW. “We’re so grateful for his or her unimaginable generosity in supporting each our scholarship program in addition to this marketing campaign.”
Additionally on the occasion, the group put in its 2025-26 board of administrators. The brand new officers are:
Milian, of Key Largo; Bonnie Barnes of Key Largo, president-elect; Ilja Chapman of Key Largo, treasurer; Elizabeth Brown of Tavernier, secretary; Bernice Dionne of Tavernier, vp of hospitality; Violet Wahba of Key Largo, vp of membership; Lauren Zelt of Key Largo, vp of applications; and board members Victoria Leonard and Amy Younger, each of Key Largo.
“For greater than 100 years, the mission of BPW has been to attain fairness for working girls,” Milian stated. “Serving to the ladies in our group advance their careers by means of training and achieve independence after surviving home violence are simply two examples of how we nonetheless reside out that mission in the present day.”
Extra info is at www.upperkeysbpw.org.