President's Report
Luba Fineson

Women's Equality Day On August 26th, Women's Equality Day awards were given to two outstanding county women with whom we have worked very closely. Ann Schaffer, 1999 Woman of the Year is Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, Westchester and convener and chair of the Westchester Coalition for Democracy, of which NOW is a member. She has spearheaded support for the County Human Rights Commission, bringing her energies and considerable diplomatic skills to bear in forming an ad hoc committee of local organizations in favor of the Commission. Ann has fought against racism and anti-Semitism and for separation of church issues from public schools.

Rita Brown, Executive Director of the YWCA, White Plains and Central Westchester, was awarded Outstanding Project of the Year for forming Encoreplus, a setting for supervised child visitation at the courthouse. We also applaud Rita's efforts to combat racism in Westchester, one of the Y's primary objectives locally and nationally. Rita is also a co-founder of Westchester Women's Agenda, of which NOW is a founding organization. This group is a leader in finding County funds for such issues as childcare, victim assistance, and rape reporting. We are proud to work with both women on these issues.

NOW Regional Conference on Women of Color and Their Allies With Sioux Taylor and Arlene Ketchum of our chapter, I attended this conference in Albany in June. It was somewhat different from the one held by National NOW in Washington D.C. last year. We got past the thrill of all being together and got into defining some of the problems - and they are us.  We are of the same plumage as the birds that enslaved, humiliated, belittled, and deprived people of color. We have a lot to make up for. Of course we personally didn't do those horrible things, but if we want better relationships and more understanding than in the past, we have to make an extra effort to show that we do. We have to listen to our sisters and find out what behavior on our part would make them comfortable. We have to show that we want to learn and understand. I hope we are not like some men who are so unaware that feminists say, "They just don't get it, " or can we learn how unconscious or conscious racism affects our sisters of color?

Election Day, November 2nd We will be voting on Chapter endorsements for County legislators at our Planning Committee meeting on October 6 and will release the results to the local media. We urge all NOW members to vote for the candidates who support our issues: funding of day care, supervised court child visitation, unrestricted access to family planning and abortion, equal pay and representation for women, increased efforts to pin down dead-beat parents, continued funding for women's shelters, victims abuse assistance, and establishment of a county human rights commission. What you do on the local level counts. To volunteer for local campaigns, call the NOW phone at (914) 428-7744.

Volunteers A special thank you and welcome to two new volunteers: Beth Levy, who is staffing the NOW phone on Mondays, and Mary Grace Pagaduan who is collecting signatures for Westchester Human Rights Commission legislation.