The holiday season is upon us. This year has both sped by and dragged on. Everyone has felt some sort of change in their lives either directly or indirectly from the COVID-19 Pandemic. And so we look to the future and to the past as we usually do as the year draws to a close.…
As promised, we are thrilled to showcase the remarkable work put forth by our global cottages which have deeply impacted their families and communities. Tai and her cottage from South Sudan were concerned about recent instances where intruders walked into homes and raped women and young girls in her community. Her cottage reached out with a…
Greetings to my lovely friends and members of Big Ocean Women! My name is Holly Sweeten and I’ve been asked to take this wonderful opportunity to tell you about myself for our November newsletter. First, I am happy to tell you that I serve with the cottage committee for BOW and it is truly an…
I believe that teachers make a powerful impact in our lives. In my family, music teachers have been especially impactful. I asked each of my children what impact their teachers had on them, and their answers were surprisingly similar. They all mentioned how much the teachers cared about them personally, and supported them as a…
We met two “cheerspreaders” when the newly-completed walking trail behind our home opened. In case you’re wondering, these are cheerleaders with powerful impact. They don’t just lead us in cheering on the team, they inspire us to be of good cheer and pass it along. Athletes and regular people like us flocked to the trail…
This is the title of one of my favorite songs from the Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musical Cinderella. In this song, Cinderella muses that she can “be whatever she wants to be.” This fairytale message was one that I loved as a girl, but one that has lost a bit of its promise since I…
I met Dr. Ugochi Ohajuruka the first time I went to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in 2017. As I filmed her, I was so taken by her desire to lift women out of poverty and give girls the correct maturation knowledge and tools to build a good foundation for the future.…
In the last couple of years I have written and received too many condolence letters. And I wonder about them, these artifacts of sorrow and grief, inscribed with a litany of words that do not say the things we mean to say, because there really are no words for those feelings, but instead we turn…