The BVCC’s Women’s Success Network (WSN) is proud to announce its participation in creating a Hope Garden at the Uxbridge High School, in support of Mental Health Awareness. Please join us in planting 500 yellow tulip bulbs inspired by the Yellow Tulip Project to help smash the stigma associated with mental illness.

Yellow tulips symbolize hope and happiness, and will be a great reminder for our community that hope does happen! Please remember to bring your gardening tools and gloves!

For more information, and to volunteer, please visit our website, www.blackstonevalley.or/events or click the button!

For additional questions on volunteering please contact WSN Chairwoman, Lynn Whitney-Turner at lynn@corebusinessxp.com or BVCC President & CEO, Jeannie Hebert at jhebert@blackstonevalley.org.

Chris Mahoney-Pick

Stay Awhile Coffee

My name is Christen Mahoney-Pick, but everyone calls me Chris. I’m a wife, a mom of two, and the owner and founder of Stay Awhile Coffee. But Stay Awhile didn’t start because I had some lifelong dream of owning a coffee company. It started because I needed to slow down.

For a long time, I was really good at being busy. I could take care of everyone, volunteer for another thing, show up for my kids, work, coach, make the schedule, solve the problem, and keep moving. From the outside, I probably looked like I had it together. Inside was a very different story.

There was a point in my life when I was struggling so deeply that I seriously considered taking my own life. That is not an easy sentence for me to write, and for a long time it wasn’t something I could imagine saying out loud. But it is part of my story. And if I’m going to talk about why mental health matters so much to me and why Stay Awhile exists, I think I have to be honest about that part, too. I was functioning. I was showing up. I was doing all the things I was supposed to be doing. And I was also hurting in a way that most people around me couldn’t see.

I started therapy in 2016. I wish I could say that walking through that door immediately changed everything, but healing doesn't really work that way. It has been years of work—some forward, some backward, and some days where just showing up was the work. Therapy forced me to start looking at things I had spent a very long time avoiding. I had to learn how to be vulnerable, how to ask for help, how to sit with uncomfortable feelings instead of immediately trying to outrun them, and how to accept that being strong doesn't always mean pretending you're fine. Ten years later, I'm still doing that work, and I'm still learning.

Somewhere along the way, coffee became more than something I drank to survive the day. I became fascinated with roasting. I have a science background, so I loved understanding what was actually happening inside that little coffee bean—how temperature, time, airflow, and tiny adjustments could completely change the end result. I could experiment, learn, screw something up, try again, and eventually create something I was proud of. There was something about that process that clicked with me.

In March 2023, Stay Awhile Coffee was born. The name was intentional. I wanted to create something that reminded people—and honestly, reminded me—that we don't always have to be moving. We don't always have to be productive. We don't always have to say, "I'm fine." Sometimes you just need to sit down. Sometimes you need to call your friend. Sometimes you need to admit you're having a hard day. Sometimes you need a cup of coffee and ten minutes where nobody needs anything from you.

Continue reading by clicking the button!

Chris Mahoney-Pick

Owner & Founder, Stay Awhile Coffee

BVCC Member, and woman owned business, Truth Organic Spa is celebrating their 20th Anniversary! On November 5th, from 5:30pm-7:30pm, located at 55 N Main St, North Grafton, MA 01536, will be having a 20th anniversary event held at the spa, and all are welcome to join!

LeadHERship Mentor Application

Volunteer to Help Inspire the Next Generation of Female Leaders

Whitin Community Center

60 Main St., Whitinsville, MA 01588

508.234.8184

LeadHERship is an 8-session empowerment program for WCC girls in grades 4 and up, funded by the United Way of Central Massachusetts' Women's Initiative. We're looking for compassionate, committed women (21+) to serve as mentors and help guide participants through a year of growth, confidence-building, leadership development, and self-discovery. Please complete this application if you're interested in becoming a mentor — see the LeadHERship flyer for full program details.

Questions or ready to sign up? Contact Jennifer Castro, Director of Community Outreach — Jennifer.Castro@ourgym.org

AS AI Accelerates, What Becomes More Important?

Written by Lynn Whitney-Turner

During the weekend of September 12th and 13th, I had the opportunity to attend the AI-Powered Women Conference at MIT, where more than 1,500 leaders participated in person and online.

Unlike other AI Conferences, this conference intentionally brings together perspectives beyond technology and business—including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, history, systems thinking, the arts, and other ways of understanding the human experience. The premise was simple but powerful: no single discipline sees the whole picture.

That has important implications for leadership.

One of the ideas that stayed with me was a question posed by AI-Powered Women:

How do we build AI—and the organizations around it—in ways that expand human and collective intelligence rather than simply amplify our existing blind spots?

As AI becomes increasingly capable of analyzing information, generating content, identifying patterns, and helping us work more efficiently, perhaps the question isn't simply, What can AI do? It is also, What do humans need to become better at?

Technical and analytical intelligence matter. But so do ethical judgment, emotional and social intelligence, curiosity, imagination, historical context, relational awareness, and understanding how decisions actually affect people's lives.

And there is another dimension we shouldn't overlook: our well-being.

Technology can make our lives easier and expand what is possible. But constant connectivity and an accelerating pace of change can also leave us feeling as though we need to continually learn more, respond faster, and keep up with whatever comes next.

That makes the reflections from our recent WSN Committee gathering particularly meaningful. When asked what they wanted more of this fall, women didn't ask for greater productivity. They said peace, serenity, patience, acceptance, tranquility, and quality time with family.

Perhaps those aren't separate conversations at all.

As our technological capabilities grow, leadership may increasingly require us to be intentional about preserving the very human capacities that technology cannot replace: our judgment, empathy, relationships, values, and ability to recognize when we, or the people around us, need space to pause.

And as women, we also have an important role to play in these conversations. It's not enough for women simply to learn how to use AI. We need women participating in decisions about how it is used, whose perspectives are represented, what problems it is being asked to solve, and how those decisions affect people.

Continue the Conversation

These questions will also be part of the broader conversation at the Blackstone Valley Chamber's Business Leadership Series on October 28th. We'll begin by exploring the Waves of Change affecting today's organizations and leaders, followed by a deeper dive into AI and what responsible, human-centered adoption can look like in practice.

Because perhaps the challenge before us isn't choosing between technology and humanity.

It's learning how to advance both.

Lynn Whitney-Turner

CEO, CORE XP Business Solutions

lynn@corebusinessxp.com

Business Leadership Summit Series: Leading Through The Age of AI

October 28, 2026

8:00am-1:30pm

Learn more by clicking the button below!

WSN MISSION

The Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce Women’s Success Network unites women to achieve their vision of success by creating a community of support and inspiration in their personal and professional lives.

The Women's Success Network (WSN) is a committee of the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce (BVCC).

Join our committee and help execute the WSN programs, projects and initiatives! Our volunteers play a crucial role in the success of the WSN by offering their time, skills and energy. We are women committed to our mission! For more information about the WSN or to become a volunteer, please email Lynn Whitney Turner, at lynn@corebusinessxp.com.