Women Empowering Families was founded in 2007 by two Anawim Housing board members, Cecelia Kent and Dotty Thurston. Their vision was to empower Anawim Housing to provide safe, affordable homes for women and families in need. Money raised through WEF go towards Anawim Housing's Supportive Services Department. These programs offer Anawim families everything from educational programming, to rental relief in the event of a life crisis. At Anawim Housing, we don't just place people in affordable housing, we empower them to succeed.
For more information on how to join or become more involved with Women Empowering Families, please contact Mary Mendenhall-Core at mcore@anawimhousing.org, or 515-809-1156
Target Gift Registry: We are always accepting new or gently used household item donations to be gifted to tenants moving into Anawim Housing that have very little or are coming from homelessness. We've set up a Target Gift Registry with our highest need items. Items can be purchased and delivered directly through the registry, or dropped off at our office during business hours.
Coming Up - Our WEF Reconnect Virtual Event! Tuesday June 22nd, Noon - 1PM, via Zoom. Click to learn more and register for this free and fun event!
Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING Event
This year's Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING event took place at The Thoreau Center! The event included an inspiring presentation with special guest speakers Claressa and Bonnie. They each shared their personal stories of overcoming homelessness and finding strength, stability and family with Anawim Housing. Guests donated a wide variety of wonderful household items that our program team will be busy distributing this winter to 10 new households moving into housing from homelessness. A special thank you to our hard-working planning committee and board members for your efforts helping make this another wonderful Anawim event from start to finish! Catering by Trellis. Photography by Austin Day.
View event photos on our Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families Spring Mother's Day Event
Our Spring Women Women Empowering Families event was centered this year around Mother's Day! The event was help on May 7th at The River Center in Des Moines. Thank you to all who joined for your generous donations of small gifts to our Anawim Housing mothers, and for helping to assemble over 100 lovely giftbags that were delivered in time for Mother's Day. The support and love for families and our mission at Anawim was felt all throughout the room. Special thanks to our wonderful planning committee for all of your hard work! Photography by Michael Watson, Catering by Trellis.
View all the photos from our event on our Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING Event
View photos from the event on our Facebook page by clicking HERE
Women Empowering Families - Home Is Everything Spring Event
This year's spring event was unique in several ways! The event was hosted at The River Center - a beautiful, brand new event location downtown. New this year, we asked guests to donate a couple items to be gifted to the many mother's living in Anawim Housing. During the event, guests helped assemble their wonderful donations into over 100+ gift bags to be gifted to Anawim mothers for Mother's Day. In the days directly following the event, Anawim staff hand-delivered the gift bags. The Anawim mother's we delivered the bags to were very surprised and overjoyed by this act of kindness that the Women Empowering Families guests provided.
View photos from the event on our Facebook page by clicking HERE
View photos of Anawim staff delivering the Mother's Day gift bags to Anawim mother's HERE
Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING Event
This year's ThanksGIVING event was held on Thursday, November 2nd at our new Anawim Housing office! A huge thank you to all who were able to join us and generously donated household items to be given to Anawim Housing families in need throughout the year. We had 70 women attend which was a great success! This year we auctioned off a beautiful handmade dollhouse, with proceeds directly supporting Anawim programs and services. The house was a sweet reminder of our moto "Home Is Everything".
View photos from this year's ThanksGIVING Event on the Anawim Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families Basic Party
WEF hosted the second annual Basic Party on May 2nd at the Riverwalk Hubspot! We had a record turnout of over 70 women! Thank you to all who attended and donated household items to be given to Anawim families in need. A huge thank you to our committee who helped plan the event and address invitations.
View photos from this year's Basic Party on the Anawim Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING Event
This year's ThanksGIVING event was held on Thursday, November 17th at the Hotel Kirkwood in Des Moines, and had a record turnout! A huge thank you to all who were able to join us and generously dontated household items to be given to Anawim Housing families in need throughout the year.
View photos from the event on Anawim's Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families Basic Party!
Thank you to all who joined us for the Basic Party, held on April 28th at The Riverwalk Hub. This party directly benefited the many Anawim Housing tenants that come to us with very little- often in need of the very basic essentials. The generous supply of donations we received will help a wide number of new and current tenants. View photos from the night's event on Anawim's Facebook page!
Women Empowering Families ThanksGIVING event 2015!
Thank-you to all who joined us for the annual ThanksGIVING event on Thursday, November 12th at The Des Moines Social Club. The large supply of household donations we received will greatly serve the families of Anawim throughout the upcoming year. View photos from the night's event on Anawim's Facebook page!
Thank you to our 2015 WEF Committee members for helping make this beautiful event possible!
Spring Gathering and Home Tour
Thank you to all of the Women Empowering Family members who joined us on Friday, May 15 for our home tour. Touring Anawim homes is a great way to truly see the impact Anawim Housing has on the community.
For pictures from the Women Empowering Families thanksGIVING 2014 event, check out the album on Anawim Housing's Facebook page!
Thank you to our 2014 WEF Committee members for putting in the time and effort to make the November event possible.
$2500+ Patron
$1000 - $2499 Leader
$500 - $999 Founder
$250 - $499 Advocate
$100 - $249 Nurturer
$25 - $99 Friend
Patron $2500+
Marilyn Duwelius
Cecelia Kent
Kate Raun
Anita Shodeen
Rebecca Westberg
Leader $1000 - $2499
Loral Kirke
Dr. Kate Massop
Claudette McDonald
Dr. Matt and Traci Petty
Michelle Whitty
Founder $500 - $999
Marilyn Carroll
Cynde Cronin
Jeanne Cunningham
Pam Douglas
Liz Goodman
Betsy Happe
Diane Loffredo
Jeanne Low
Rachel Lubben
Rhonda Marshall
Joan Miller
Dotty Thurston
Advocate $250 - $499
Megan Drake
Sue Kenny
Cynthia Latcham
Sheila Rayburn
Janet Rosenbury
Mary Scarpino
Lori Vande Krol
Jo VandeLune
Nurturer $100 - $249
Phyllis Cacciatore
Christian and Stephanie Comito
Jim and Celeste Egger
Jane Hemminger
Mary Holtze
Janet Mashek
Julie McDougal
Lisa Menzies
Joel and Kathy Olah
Jeannine Rolfes
Sandra Stephan
Cheryl Sypal
Friends Of Women Empowering Families
Mary Core
Catherine Eagle
Mary Keables
Mary and Chuck Kunkel
Deborah Leksell
Julie Montgomery
Mary Rolfes
Jan Hunter
