Today, March 8th, marks International Women’s Day, and OnRamp has incredible women to celebrate! The vast majority of our staff, volunteers, advocates, and clients are women, and all of them have accomplished things that deserve recognition. But there are two that we want to spotlight today.
Jill Butler and her husband David, with her OnRamp plaque for faithful service.
First, we recognize our faithful Client Care Committee volunteer Jill Butler! Jill has served OnRamp’s clients for the last two years. She focuses on relationship building and ongoing care, ensuring that our clients feel loved and valued. When she’s not volunteering with OnRamp, Jill is pursuing her LPC professional counseling license and raising her two children with her husband, David. We are so grateful for Jill’s selfless love to our OnRamp family that we recently awarded her this plaque in recognition of her service.
Second, we want to recognize our fearless leader, Catherine Cole, who has served as a Board Member and now Board Chair. Dr Cole’s area of research is actually on the value of women in leadership roles. As her paper, “Women in International Public Leadership” (here) concluded, “as the number of women increased within governments, levels of perceived corruption decreased, national investment in healthcare increased, and foreign direct investment increased.” Bringing women to the table is not only the moral thing to do, it improves organizational performance, both public and private. Having women speak into OnRamp’s leadership decisions, especially when over half of our constituency are female, is vital to making the best decisions. We are so grateful for Catherine’s wisdom!
Catherine handing over keys to a Honda Odyssey to the leaders of Our Daughters’ House in Brenham, a charity that supports young women in need.
Sadly, there are many governments and cultures where women are excluded from leadership and service. Today, we grieve over the loss of freedom women are experiencing in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s resurgent rule. So much progress that was made in women’s education, health, and empowerment has been stripped away. OnRamp has been privileged to serve a half dozen Afghan refugees over the last two years. These are resilient, hard-working, hopeful people. They deserve so much more. So on this International Women’s Day, please join us in praying for freedom and justice for women in Afghanistan and anywhere else in the world where they are oppressed or sidelined.
