Honor Your Women Leaders!
Share Your Stories, Comments and Congratulations

Welcome to RaiseMyLeader.org, a site dedicated to celebrating this year’s YWCA’s Leader Luncheon honorees: 10 women selected by the community as being outstanding, inspiring and exceptional leaders. Please help us celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of these women leaders by sharing your stories and favorite quotes in their honor.

Our Leader Luncheon theme this year is based on the principle that it takes a community to raise a leader. In turn, the leader raises the community. These leaders, and your stories about them, will continue to serve as inspiration for women and girls for years to come.

Our distinguished Honorees for 2009 include Dr. Erlinda Cachola, Suzanne Case, Anna Elento-Sneed, Signe Godfrey, Marsha Graham, Janice Kalanihuia, Melody K. MacKenzie, Diane Plotts, Dr. Virginia Pressler and Indru Watumull.

Dr. Erlinda Cachola	Suzanne Case	Anna Elento-Sneed	Signe Godfrey	Marsha Graham
Janice Kalanihuia	Melody MacKenzie	Diane Plotts	Dr. Virginia Pressler	Indru Watumull

YWCA Honors Dr. Sue Wesselkamper with Lifetime Achievement Award Dr. Mary Civille (Sue) Wesselkamper, former president of Chaminade University, will be recognized posthumously with the YWCA of O’ahu’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  More

Join us on Friday, June 19, from 11:30 to 1:30 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Coral Ballroom, for the YWCA’s 32nd annual LeaderLuncheon.
LeaderLuncheon 2009

Leave a comment to celebrate your women leaders!

If you cannot attend click here to make a gift in your honoree’s name.

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1 Comment

1. My mother grew up in a Japan-occupied Philippine village during WWII. When she was 3 years old, Japanese soldiers came to her home looking for her father, who was a guerrilla fighter. My grandmother hid her in a closet before the soldiers saw her, and took my grandmother, 7 months pregnant at the time, as a hostage. The neighbors didn’t find my mother there until the next day.

   My Grandmother was taken to a prisoner of war camp, where she experienced beatings and torture in order to flush my grandfather from hiding. He gave himself up, but my grandmother was not released until she went into labor almost 2 months later. My grandfather died in that camp, leaving my grandmother, a schoolteacher, to raise her daughters alone.

   From my grandmother’s strength, my mother learned the ethics of hard work, the importance of education, and the desire to provide a better life for her own family. She came to America with only $500, and from her early experiences as a new immigrant, vowed that she would help others like her if she was given the opportunity. She worked hard, and was blessed with success. She was chosen as the 1st female President of the Philippine Medical Association in Hawaii, and also held 2 terms as Chairperson of the Hawaii Board of Medical Examiners, the licensing authority for all physicians in Hawaii. She has been a host of a local cable health television show, and grown her medical practice into a mainstay of the Kalihi community over the last 34 years. As a way to keep her promise to help those in need, she started the Kalihi Community Health Fair 25 years ago, making available free medical health screenings and education to many who could not afford to see a doctor. Please welcome Leader Luncheon Honoree Dr. Erlinda Cachola.

   Comment by Lyla Prather, MD — June 18, 2009 @ 4:47 pm

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