Reminder: April 3 Program at Susi Q

Monday • April 3rd • 6–8pm

Susi Q Senior Center Laguna Beach 

Click on image to view the flyer.

Renew your membership NOW so that we can remain a thriving AAUW branch! Dues Renewal Forms will be mailed to Dual Members and others who prefer to pay dues by check. AAUW national will email Regular and Life members to pay membership dues by credit card – the hassle-free way to pay! Just log in to your AAUW account (or create one if you haven't already).

2023-24 Dues:

Regular $122 ($69 tax-deductible),

Dual & Life $30

2023 Campers

Have Been Selected!

Congratulations to our 2023 cohort of campers from Pioneer, Thurston, and Venado Middle Schools: Alessandra, Anushree, Brigid, Emma, Isabelle, Kaley, Kayla, Mariko, Marina, Parker, and Zoey! We are pleased to be sending students to Whittier College, Virtual Camp, and the re-opening UC San Diego Camp!

Thank you to the application review committee for their thorough review of the students’ essays.

Poetry Group February meeting, listening and learning the background of original poems by Selma, Kas, and Carol; and sharing poems we liked on the expanded theme of love, friends, relationships, and country.  

Book Review:

The Lincoln Highway

by Amor Towles

The year is 1954. Emmett, an 18-year old man, is released from a juvenile detention center following the death of his father. He is driven home by the warden to make a fresh start together with Billy, his 8-year-old brother. Unbeknownst to them, two other 18-year olds from the detention center are hiding out in the trunk of the warden’s car. They have their own plan for starting over, one that greatly changes the course of Emmett’s plans. Thus begins this 10-day tale of misadventures and self-discovery, where expectations are frequently upended. At nearly 600 pages, this novel is nevertheless a page-turner; with a wonderful cast of characters, beautifully descriptive prose, and surprising twists and turns.

~Peggie Thomas

Evening Book Group

AAUW California Annual Event

The AAUWards

April 22, 2023—on Zoom

This year's Annual Event has a Hollywood theme, complete with red carpet happenings, awards, and entertainment. The program will include:

• AAUW CEO Gloria Blackwell, who is also AAUW's main representative to the United Nations. She spent 15 years managing the Fellowships and Grants program, overseeing $70 million in funding to women scholars and programs in the U.S. and overseas. She has worked to increase girls’ participation in STEM and to increase AAUW’s outreach to girls and women of color.
• Secretary Eileen M. Vélez Vega, who is serving as the first woman Secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and Public Works. She is an engineer and a fierce advocate for girls in STEM.
• GovTrek finals
• Speech Trek finals
• Branch awards
• More

Sign up to participate, celebrate, and learn!

Literary Luncheon

What makes AAUW special? Our 2023 Literary Luncheon reminded us. We are a diverse group of women, like-minded in our commitment to share our talents, time, and money to support equity for women and girls. Once a year we gather to lunch together, raise money for our outreach efforts and enjoy outstanding authors. This year Jennifer Coburn, Dori Jones Yang and Maggie Shipstead not only entertained us but also shared how much discipline and hard work it takes to produce a great piece of writing. We welcomed four of our scholarship recipients from local colleges and universities and heard gripping stories of what they had to overcome to continue their education. We laughed, were moved, and left with renewed energy for our mission. The event was a success, surpassing our $20,000 fundraising goal. Many thanks to luncheon Co-chairs Roberta Kanter & Audrey Locke, and the hard-working Literary Luncheon committee for creating a great event!

~Lesley Danziger

Fall Fundraiser

While the spring Literary Luncheon is our signature fundraising event of the year, the AAUW Laguna Beach Foundation holds another fundraiser every fall. In 2022, the theme was a celebration of our 55th anniversary as a branch. Members donned party hats and penned post cards to friends and family, familiarizing them with our scholarships and other programs, and inviting their support. In all, the effort raised over $15,000.

Thank you to everyone who participated!

AAUW National (April 5 - May 15).

Vote on amendments to the bylaws recommended by the AAUW Board of Directors and AAUW Governance Committee. 

AAUW California (April 22 - May 13).

Vote on new Public Policy Priorities (PPP) for 2023-2025. 

AAUW Laguna Beach (Dates TBA).

Vote on the slate of board candidates.

AAUW California

2023-24 Legislative Agenda

The State Public Policy Committee has set the 2023-24 legislative agenda for AAUW California. Guided by the three pillars of our public policy priorities, the bills selected for attention this year are:

Economic Security— 8 bills

Public Education— 11 bills

Social Justice —21 bills:

• 8 reproductive justice
• 5 healthcare
• 5 freedom from violence
• 1 gender-identity protection
• 2 voting rights

AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund

Challenging sex discrimination

in higher education and the workplace

AAUW has provided millions of dollars to balance the scales of justice for people working toward gender equity through the legal system. The Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF) supports the protection of legal rights through legal case support, travel grants, campus outreach projects, and law school clinical programs. Our current clinical grantees are:

Workers, Law, and Organizing Clinic, UC Irvine School of Law

Working in collaboration with immigrant worker centers and worker-led grassroots organizations in Southern California, students in the Workers, Law, and Organizing Clinic will provide holistic legal representation for low-wage women workers. These projects will support organizing, community education, and policy advocacy efforts initiated and sustained by partner organizations.

Civil Rights & Transparency Clinic, University at Buffalo School of Law

The clinic is launching the Western New York Gender Equity Initiative. This project enables student attorneys to advise and represent clients on a variety of gender equity issues, including equal pay and employment discrimination, and to advocate for the expansion of gender equity and economic security through litigation and legislative advocacy.

~Jean Brotherton

Fellowships and Grants Officer

When Scouts BSA began offering membership to girls in 2019, there were no existing troops for girls – so Ani Hovanesian created one! Four years later, she became one of just a few people to earn the top rank in both Girl Scouts and Scouts BSA. Her projects for both included building programs to inspire younger girls to pursue STEM.

Seeing a need to get younger kids motivated in STEM was the inspiration for Ani's 2020 Eagle Scout project – the creation of a Space Camp pilot program at the Boys & Girls Club of Laguna Beach. That fall, when Ani joined her 40-person high school robotics team, she was one of only 4 girls on the team. So she and the other girls on her team started STEM Sisterhood at the Community Roots Academy in Laguna Niguel, teaching younger girls the fundamentals of robotics, coding, and STEM. The program has grown to a 40-person all-girls FIRST Lego Robotics team reaching girls from all over the Capistrano Unified School District. For her recently completed Girl Scout Gold Award service project, Ani led STEM Sisterhood mentors in the creation of a program she called Camp emPOWER, teaching girls about circuitry using sustainable energy by creating electricity from wind turbines, water turbines, racing solar-powered cars, and more.

Hovanesian aspires to become a NASA aerospace engineer. She is currently becoming a private pilot, flying a Piper Archer at Pacific Flight Aviation school, as she continues to break barriers for women and girls.

Ani Hovanesian teaching about parallel circuits at Camp emPOWER. Click image for more.

AAUW promotes gender equity through research, education, and advocacy. 

The Newsblast!! is the monthly newsletter for AAUW Laguna Beach Branch members. Submission deadline is noon on the 27^th for publication on the 1^st of the month. Recent issues can be found in the Members Center of the website, and redacted versions are publicly available in the "ABOUT" drop-down menu on the home page.