By Jason Crane –
For a nearly a decade, the Women’s Power Lunch has honored women who do amazing things in the Fox Valley area.
State representative Stephanie Kifowit received the 2018 Woman Of Power Award, Thursday, Sept. 20 at Piper’s Banquets in Aurora.
Fran Caffee was honored with the Woman of the Year Award posthumously, which was accepted by her daughter, Mary Caffee Twait.
Kifowit was elected to represent the 84th IL House District in 2012 (98th GA), re-elected in 2014 and in 2016. The 84th IL House District contains portions of Aurora, Montgomery, Oswego and Naperville. Kifowit is an alumna of Northern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration.
She has been married to Steve for 20 years. They have two children. They lived in Aurora for 18 years prior to moving to Oswego.
Representative Kifowit is a member of the Roosevelt-Aurora American Legion Post 84, Fox Valley Marines, DuPage County Marine Corps League, Women Marine Association, Aurora Regional Chamber of Commerce, Aurora Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Quad County African American Chamber of Commerce, and the Oswego Chamber of Commerce. She is a founding member of S.H.A.R.E. (Supporting Hope And Respecting Everyone), which is a committee dedicated to supporting efforts against domestic violence. She serves on the IL House General Services Appropriation Committee as vice chairman, financial institutions, health care licenses, and intermodal infrastructure committees.
Fran Caffee lived her life as a stalwart defender of the Fox River and dedicated countless hours on its banks in and around the Aurora area. She founded the Valley of the Fox chapter of the Sierra Club in 1992, and co-founded the Water Sentinels Club in 1995.
The first Women’s Power Lunch in 2009 raised approximately $1,000 with 30 guests at the first luncheon.
This year approximately 200 supporters filled the banquet room at Piper’s Banquets in Aurora.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Sonat Birnecker Hart, a former Walter Benjamin Chair of German Jewish Cultural History at Humboldt University
in Berlin, left academia in 2008 to found KOVAL Distillery, America’s most-widely distributed independent craft distillery with more than 50 international awards and international distribution to 55 export markets. As KOVAL’s president, she has spearheaded product development, distribution, and marketing. Sonat co-founded Kothe Distilling Technologies.
• Previous Woman Of Power recipients were honored. They are:
Kim Granholm, 2012: She was the first Woman Of Power honored at the luncheon.
Kim (Bartlett) Granholm took on the role of owner and president of Aurora Fastprint in September 2006. She is a 1994 graduate of West Aurora High School and graduate of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, with a degree in business management. She worked in accounting for STATS, Inc. and joined Aurora Fastprint full time in February 2001. She gives back to the community by volunteering with the Kiwanis Club of Aurora, Fourth of July Independence Day parade committee, serves as secretary for the Aurora Historical Society, and is chair of Aurora Downtown.
Mirna Lopez-Rivera, 2013:
Mirna Lopez-Rivera was born in Aurora and raised in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. She moved back to Aurora during her high school junior year where she attended East Aurora High School. She owns her own business, Midwest Occupational Health Management Services, in Aurora.
She has been active with many organizaitons, including the Aurora Puerto Rican Cultural Council, Jesse “The Law” Torres Boxing Club, and the Hispanic Heritage Advisory Board. Mirna has a passion for helping the less fortunate and giving back to the community by volunteering for numerous organizations such as Feed My Starving Children, Hesed House, nursing home visits, food pantries, blood drives, toy drives, and scholarship fundraising.
Lulu Blacksmith, 2014:
Lourdes (Lulu) Blacksmith served as the director of community relations and District press secretary for former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, congressman J. Dennis Hastert, 2002 to 2008. Between 1987 and 2002, Blacksmith served as the manager of community outreach at Presence Mercy Medical Center in Aurora.
Blacksmith has served Aurora as a volunteer in many capacities. Her interest in helping others is derived from her life experience as an immigrant and a lifelong learner. Blacksmith founded Compañeros en Salud / Partners in Health, NFP in 1999 to provide the Hispanic community and other diverse groups with the means to gain access to resources and services for their health and well-being.
In 2000, Blacksmith founded Language Access to Healthcare, a free community-based health care interpreting service to increase access to health care. Because educational opportunities were not available to her earlier in life, she advocates and works to raise awareness about the importance of education.
Lisa Garcia, 2015:
Growing up in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, Lisa Garcia learned a strong work ethic and sense of community. She is employed by R.C. Wegman Construction in Aurora.
She is a tireless advocate for military veterans in Aurora. She was a key organizer and committee member for Aurora when she was selected as a host of the Vietnam Moving Wall in 2013.
She is an active member of military and community organizations. Lisa is often called the “energizer bunny” or “spark plug” due to her never-ending passion and energy for helping those in the community.
Fannie Morrison, 2016:
In 1999 she took Mutual Ground’s 60-hour domestic and sexual violence training in order to respond to hospital emergency calls. When she realized it would be too difficult for her emotionally, she began watering plants and flower gardens on the Mutual Ground property and eventually took over its clothing closet. She continues to volunteer almost daily in this capacity, while organizing a giant yard sale each Summer that has grown to raise more than $3,000 annually to help bring in funds for the shelter.
In addition to the work she does at Mutual Ground, she has been volunteering at Hesed House cooking meals, cooking for the TLC guests every Christmas, and has been tutoring students in math and reading at Nancy Hill Elementary School in Aurora since 1999. To this day she loves working with the children of Nancy Hill, referring to them as “my little babies”. Fannie has served food at Wayside Cross Ministries for close to 17 years. On top of all of these important volunteer responsibilities, she teaches a bible class at the Fox Valley Work Release Center each week.
Fannie (A.K.A. Miss Fannie) takes on each day with grace and a truly grateful heart. She has come to know and care for Mutual Ground clients and greets almost everyone with a hug. She lights up many lives at Mutual Ground and surely does the same for the many other organizations which are lucky enough to have her true dedication and amazing spirit grace their doorsteps.
Norma Peterson, 2017:
October 28, 2007 Norma Peterson’s sister-in-law, Stacy Peterson, went missing and the journey her family has faced as an experience since that day has run the gamut. It has just been in the last few years that Norma has been able to talk about her family’s experiences.
Norma has been doing volunteer work with the Roosevelt American Legion Post 84 for more than 10 years and recently re-established the Legion Post 84 Auxiliary after a 23-year hiatus.
She has been a member of the Aurora Fourth of July Parade Committee for the past five years and is a volunteer in parade activities. Norma has been a proud member of the SHARE Fox Valley planning committee since its inception in 2009.
Norma has worked passionately and tirelessly to bring awareness to the existence of the EAA (Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit) which is a viable tool for victims of domestic violence, law enforcement, and the judicial system. Norma assists victims who create their own EAA and works with law enforcement and state legislators to establish it in their protocol when working with victims of domestic violence.
SHARE Fox Valley, formerly the Women’s Power Lunch Committee, was founded by Stephanie Kifowit in 2009. She visualized a collaboration of professional women who contribute to the needs of community. The committee of women established themselves as SHARE Fox Valley in October, 2013. For more information about SHARE Fox Valley, click here.
In 2011, SHARE became a partner with Mutual Ground, to be a champion their mission and purpose throughout Fox Valley, and surrounding communities. Mutual Ground Inc. was founded in 1975, with the goal of providing services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and their families. Mutual Ground is one of the largest and oldest domestic violence shelters in the state. For more information about Mutual Ground, click here.
