Twenty Years of Supporting the Mid-Shore’s Women & Girls: A Chat with Alice Ryan

When one thinks about the Women & Girls Fund, and what they have accomplished during their twenty years of existence, it is quite understandable to notice a tear in one’s eye. For two decades, the Fund has dedicated itself to supporting some of the Mid-Shore’s most innovative and successful programs to not only lift women and girls but empower them for a brighter future.

Behind this remarkable story is the Women & Girls Fund founder Alice Ryan. With the help of friends and a passion to find a way to support women and girls at a time when resources were few and far between, Alice worked with the Mid-Shore Community Foundation to form this unique organization in 2002.

And now with a history of over $800,000 in grants and a $1 million endowment, the Fund has become one of the Mid-Shore’s most respected philanthropic organizations. Beyond their direct support, the Fund has taken seriously the task of working with their beneficiaries to become stronger, more independent organizations and at the same time have developed creative ways to nurture a new generation of women philoinatioposits.

In light of these extraordinary accomplishments, the Spy will be working with the Women & Girls Fund board members over the next year to put a well deserved spotlight on the causes they support and the special women leaders that lead those efforts.

We begin this “Twenty Years and Counting” series with founder Alice Ryan. Last week, we sat with Alice at the Fund’s offices in the Bullitt House in Easton to understand her original motivation in starting the program, what the Fund has accomplished over the last twenty years, and her hopes for the Women & Girls Fund as it enters its next twenty years of existence.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Women & Girls Fund please go here.