PITTSBORO — The Professional Women of Chatham and Orange Counties (PW-COC) held its annual Scholarship Awards night at Briar Chapel Clubhouse June 29, presenting $500 scholarships to members Leslie Chartier, Jamie Kreil, Chana Meeks and Mari Vogel. These winners are women who are in business in the area who sought extra training, equipment, or other essentials to help grow their business or assist them in their goals.
As a group of diverse professionals, PW-COC is an organization with a strong mission statement: open to, and answering the needs of the community through service or aid. To develop, support, and promote the professional, business, and leadership potential of working women while enhancing and sharing experience and ideas with each other. The group strives to connect to other like-minded women focused on achievement and success in business. They are a sisterhood of caring and helpful women dedicated to assist other women when needed. They provide support, advice, referrals, relevant educational presentations that help members achieve their goals through quarterly member events, a member website and promotion of each other’s businesses through the website and newsletters.
“When successful women gather together one can almost feel the electricity in the room!” President Jennifer Halloran said. Newcomer Brenda Jernigan noted that the evening was so much fun because everyone was so welcoming, and friendly. Another guest noted that the gathering was quite different than most networking groups. That is most likely due to the commitment to making this a unique organization and sisterhood. Founder and past president Jean MacDonald infuses this philosophy into each event and project with outstanding results. Joined by an energetic board of directors, PW-COC hopes to realize continued success in the area of women in business.
The scholarship fund is supported by member events such as the annual auction “Sell Your Sizzle” which will take place next month as well as a vendor fair that is held in November.
The group is open to all women who are in business. Member meetings are held on Wednesday nights once a month as well as informal monthly lunch gatherings. For more information on how to join, go to pw-coc.com.