10 minute read
Blazing Trails. Shattering Ceilings. Leading Charges.
Blazing Trails. Shattering Ceilings. Leading Charges.
Celebrating Women’s History Month
FIRST LADY FRANCES WOLF helps tell Pennsylvania’s story through One Lens: Sharing Our Common Views
BY KATIE MAHONEY VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
First Lady Frances Wolf
EG Photography
Together, as a community, a state, a country, a world, we are making history, and have been, for the past 12+ months. Pennsylvania’s First Lady Frances Wolf has launched a plan to capture that history, through the stories of those living it every single day. One Lens: Sharing Our Common Views is a statewide virtual photo exhibit to document the story of Pennsylvania throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we’re going to see a lot of connections, and a lot of things we have in common all across the state,” she shares. “When we look at the history books of the 1918 pandemic, and other occurrences, the photos are what tell the story. We have the chance now to tell the story ourselves of this piece of history.”
As a professional artist, the First Lady, [“Please, call me Frances,” she adds,] knows the impact art and photography can have to inspire, to heal, to connect. “We don’t need professional photos, we want every citizen of Pennsylvania to take a look back at what they captured over the past year, and submit. We’re going to see connections. We’re going to see that we are not alone in this. It’s very easy to feel isolated these days, but learning that your experience is similar to someone else’s brings a sense of healing.”
Frances is no stranger to the isolation felt by most these days. “We’ve done our zoom dinners with friends,” she shares. “This pandemic has taught us that although we can’t physically be together, the people you care about, and who care about you, are still there. We can still connect. We’ve had to get creative in how we do so, but we still do it.”
One Lens encompasses three themes: Our Heroes, paying homage to the pandemic heroes who cannot stay home; Our Lives, looking at how we spend our time when no one is watching; and Our Communities, showcasing Pennsylvanians uniting in the face of a global health crisis
In preparation of the exhibit, five ambassadors were selected to represent regions of the state. For Central PA, WGAL TV reporter Porcha Johnson was chosen. “The ambassadors have been incredible,” shares Frances. “They’ve really picked this up and run with it, pushing it out through all their networks and social media. They’ve been very enthusiastic.” Porcha is also the founder of Black Girl Health, designed to help minority women and girls live a healthier lifestyle through its online services. “She is very passionate and dedicated to Black Girl Health. We’re honored she is also passionate about One Lens, and encouraging residents to share their stories.” Residing in York County, Frances adds “By asking Porcha to bring her passion to leading the Central PA region as an ambassador, we hope to see a lot of submissions from York.”
At the end of the interview, Frances encourages me to submit. I laugh, and say “I don’t think you want a photo of me in sweatpants surrounded by UPS packages.” She’s prompt to respond “that’s exactly what we want!”
Q: We’re celebrating Women’s History Month in this issue. Who inspires you?
How to experience One Lens: Sharing Our Common Views: The photo submission period closed Monday, March 8, 2021. The full exhibit will be released on Friday, March 19, 2021. FOLLOW ALONG: pa.gov/one-lens @onelenspa
GRACE QUARTEY finds creative ways to connect people, and ideas
BY JJ SHEFFER DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
Grace Quartey
EG Photography
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Grace Quartey brings people together.
In her practice as an accountant, her role as the newly-elected treasurer of YCEA’s board of directors, and as the founder of a nonprofit, she is always looking for ways to connect people and ideas.
Quartey, who grew up in Ghana before relocating to Baltimore County and eventually to York, loves her work as a CPA. Her clients are also friends, and she finds joy in helping people resolve issues and maintain compliance.
When COVID hit and many of her small business clients needed assistance, they didn’t qualify for the initial rounds of federal assistance programs. Then the County of York, in partnership with YCEA and Community First Fund, administered CARES Act funding through the YoCo Strong Restart Fund grant program, and Grace quickly spread the word to her client base.
“And amazingly,” she says, “all of them got something. It was nice that finally I was able to send them somewhere that they got help.”
She also devotes time and energy to Building Solid Foundations, a nonprofit organization she founded after a 2002 visit to Apam, the village in Ghana where her father was born and where Quartey went to boarding school. When she visited and saw that the town had not progressed since she left at 19 years old, she and her husband felt compelled to help.
The organization does service-based mission trips with a focus on medicine, education, and economic development. They take supplies, equipment, and about 20-25 people from York at a time to spend two weeks in Ghana. Surgeons do 150-170 surgeries during the stay, and other professionals do project-specific work, such as the time they took a group of refrigeration engineers to develop cold storage for the small fishing village.
Quartey applies this same spirit of collaboration in her day-to-day work and her volunteer work in the York community. She firmly believes that to have a real impact, it’s critical to avoid silos and combine resources and expertise.
“There’s this African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with others,” she says. “It’s not easy going with others, because everybody has their own agenda, everybody has their own mission. But the hardest thing is what bears the sweetest fruit. We have to find ways of working together. That’s what I hope. And I’m working on it.”
Join Building Solid Foundations in improving the lives of the thousands of people in Ghana who face death and disease, poverty and illiteracy.
“Working together, we can change their future.”
GET INVOLVED: buildingsolidfoundations.org
PRESIDENT JUDGE MARIA MUSTI COOK is no stranger to shattering glass ceilings
BY KATIE MAHONEY VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
President Judge Maria Musti Cook
EG Photography
In January, Judge Maria Musti Cook became the first female President Judge in York County, but it’s not her first-time blazing trails, and shattering ceilings. Twenty-five years ago, she was the first female president for the York County Bar Association, and when she entered private practice, she was the first woman hired in her firm, and the first woman to make partner.
When asked how it feels, she laughs lightly and says “it feels good!” She is only the third woman elected to the bench, and with PJ elections only every five years, she knew eventually the time would come. “I’m happy that ceiling is broken, and that the opportunity will exist in the future,” she shares.
The journey to today hasn’t been easy, but it came naturally. “When I came out of law school, I graduated in a class that was 40% women, it gave me a false sense that everything is really good out there. Then I came back to my hometown and there were only 15 women out of 250 lawyers practicing,” she explains. “Things they told you in law school that you wouldn’t see anymore, you did. Like people asking when you plan to start your family. I would think ‘is this a test? Is this candid camera?’ It was still the good old boys’ network.”
Her ability to persevere and keep pushing came from the mentors around her, and those who continued to push her out of her comfort zone. “I didn’t make judge the first try, I made it the second. You have to be in the right spot at the right time.
You get pushed along and motivated by other people who believe you can do things, then you believe you can do them, and you do them.”
Great role models, and mentors, are the key to finding the right journey. Judge Musti Cook attributes her steps forward to her professors at York College of Pennsylvania who encouraged her not to stop with her bachelor’s degree – namely Dr. Tom Lepson.
Attorney Bob Katherman, and Judge John Miller have also been great inspirations to Judge Musti Cook. “Judge Miller was wonderful to work for, and being a law clerk for him really did put the idea in my mind of running for judge at one point. I got the insider view. I wasn’t very politically motivated, so I couldn’t envision that for myself, but when the time came, I gave it serious thought.” Judge John C. Uhler, Judge Richard Renn, and Judge Penny Blackwell are also, as she puts it, “good people to vent to, and seek advice from.”
When asked her goals as President Judge, she’s honest in saying, “I’m not out to change the world. I want to get us through COVID, in the next 6-9 months, which is not a quick and easy recovery.”
There are two programs she is focused on – the Stepping Up Initiative, to keep people out of prison who are primarily there due to serious mental health issues, and the CARD project, established by Judge Craig Trebilcock to help individuals battling substance abuse get the help they need, and stay out of trouble.
Q: Any advice to others reading this issue, and their path to their own greatness?
DR. MONEA ABDUL-MAJEED is leading real change for welcoming workplaces
BY JJ SHEFFER DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
Dr. Monea Abdul-Majeed
EG Photography
One-off diversity training workshops can start a conversation, but they won’t lead to real change within an organization.
“If we’re talking about antiracism, which is shifting power, we have to start where power lies in organizations, and that’s with leadership,” says Dr. Monea Abdul-Majeed. She noticed in her conversations while consulting in York that there was a real need for antiracist leadership training. She tested the market by hosting a free webinar – with no paid advertising – and 300 people signed up. Since then, she has launched an online school with antiracism courses for community leaders.
Dr. Monea knew from the time she was a small child that she wanted to be an activist and an educator. She has indeed played both roles throughout her life, and has remained steadfast in her commitment to them as they’ve grown and evolved.
Dr. Monea, who has a PhD in Sociology with a concentration in Social Inequality and Urban Sociology, has had her own consulting business since 2016, and as of January 1, it’s her full-time focus. “I’m always changing and growing as a business owner,” she says, “but in terms of the actual work that I do, this just feels like an extension of me, and the best way to use my gifts and talents to serve others.”
She helps organizations understand that it’s important to begin with small changes, to identify things they can do immediately to make employees feel more welcome and safe; and to also recognize that it will take consistent, intentional effort over at least three years to begin to see a real shift in organizational culture.
Her antiracism courses facilitate deeper, more meaningful change by helping individual participants grow, then take what they’ve learned back to their organizations.
“Antiracism, by its very definition, is just changing policies and procedures to make them more equitable,” Abdul-Majeed says. “But the authentic way is when people not just intellectualize it, but it moves from their head to their hearts. And that’s what the course really works on. So it is not tokenism, it’s not just to get a grant, it’s not just to save face, but it’s really because people care.”
Dr. Monea’s suggestion for where to start: The Scene On Radio podcast, Seeing White, sceneonradio.org/ seeing-white/. More info about the course can be found at drmoneallc.com.
