Parents as Teachers National Center (PATNC) held its second annual Professional Women’s Engagement Café on Tuesday, May 14, in celebration of its 35th anniversary and as part of its Women’s Partnership Network, which was created to deepen the organization’s community engagement efforts.
This year’s event was hosted by Build-A-Bear Founder and PATNC Board Member Maxine Clark, chair of the Clark-Fox Family Foundation. The Engagement Café is designed to have a positive impact on some of the area’s most vulnerable young women by exposing them to local professional women in a life-sharing exercise in roundtable discussions.
“We created this network and subsequent event as an opportunity to have a positive effect on the lives of young mothers served by our organization, and to illustrate the collective impact Parents as Teachers and these accomplished women can have on enriching the lives of people living in underserved communities,” said Constance Gully, PATNC president and chief executive officer, who opened the event with a welcome.
Invited were 15 young mothers who receive PATNC services and professional women who embrace PATNC’s mission to strengthen families and ensure that their children will learn, grow and develop to realize their full potential. The professional women included: Candice Carter-Oliver, Confluence Charter Schools; Raegan Johnson, Bayer; Rebecca Fritsch, Fifth Third Bank; Katie Knapp, Thompson Coburn; Linda Locke, Standing Partnership; Brittany “Tru” Kellman, Jamaa Birth Village; Cheryl Watkins-Moore, BioSTL; Sharonica Hardin-Bartley, University City School District; Mecca Baker, Novus; Cynthia Crim, Commerce Bank; Carol Daniel, KMOX-AM radio; and Pamela Blair, EyeSeeMe African American Children’s Bookstore.