As told to Emily Kestel Maria Gonzalez-Alvarez is a disaster case manager for the tornado and derecho programs at Mid-Iowa Community Action in Marshalltown. She is the co-founder and co-organizer of Immigrant Allies, which is a resource organization that helps immigrant families that formed after the ICE raid at the Read more…
One year ago we launched Fearless. Ahead of the launch, we spent months planning what was years’ worth of ideas about how we could work toward our goal of empowering Iowa women to succeed in work and life. This platform is still young, so you might be unfamiliar – but Read more…
By Emily Kestel Last year, to launch the Fearless initiative, we introduced you to 12 fearless Iowa women. Together, they were courageous, honest, confident, persistent, brave, purposeful, daring, resilient, authentic, unselfish, passionate and persistent. The six people we talked to this year are no different. They’ve taken big risks, they Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Suzan Erem is an organizer and writer. In 2015, she co-founded the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, which is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting land to grow healthy food. She continues to serve as its executive director. She lives in Cedar County. The following story has Read more…
By Brittany Heard, lead adviser, Foster Group In my role as a financial adviser, I get to meet with a variety of people from different stages of life who have different experiences with money. Some women I meet are very interested in finances and others feel insecure when it comes Read more…
By Emily Kestel, Fearless editor The theme of this year’s Women Lead Change Central Iowa Conference was “Joining Voices: Leaders for Equity.” One way I like to practice equity is by sharing knowledge. In this case, sharing knowledge looks like sharing the highlights of my nine pages of notes. Before Read more…
By Emily Kestel, Fearless editor In 2016, David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson published their first book, “Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women.” A year later, the #MeToo movement dominated the headlines and Smith and Johnson found themselves being pulled into conversations about how men can Read more…
By Emily Kestel, Fearless editor Period shaming is pervasive: A 2018 study by Thinx revealed that nearly 60% of menstruators have felt embarrassed simply because they were on their period. Additionally, 62% admit feeling that they feel uncomfortable using the word “period.” Before she created a planner to help menstruators Read more…
By Emily Blobaum, Fearless editor The topics of mentorship and professional development have consistently been at the top of the list of issues that Fearless readers are interested in. So we thought, who better to talk to about mentorship than the Business Record’s Women of Influence? During September’s Fearless Friday Read more…
Stories compiled by Emily Blobaum, Fearless editor Each year, more than 15,000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer. Roughly 11% of those diagnosed die. Yet research on pediatric cancer remains underfunded – just 4% of the federal budget for cancer research is earmarked for childhood cancer. Although the Read more…