Winter 2011 - K-Space Web Page - Central Catholic High School

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10 Alumni News | Winter 2011Graduate Helps EmpowerWomen Through Giving CirclePatricia (Deuble) Andersson ’76 has a pretty interesting “day job”as a graphic designer. She works part time for Oregon Sea Grant,based at Oregon State University, as their information designspecialist. Oregon Sea Grant is a governmental agency, one of anetwork of 30 Sea Grants around the country (there is also an OhioSea Grant) that conducts research and administers grants for nearoceanand coastal issues, and educates and engages the public aboutthese issues. As their designer, Patricia helps publish the researchand create displays and educational materials.Patricia, who has a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from theUniversity of Cincinnati, also works as a freelance graphic designer,and her main freelance job is for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers.She designsand producestheir game dayprograms andjust completedher fourthseason with theteam.But it’s not herday job thathas led her ontrips to Kenyaand Uganda ormade her feel soblessed in hereveryday life.Patricia leadsthe Portland,Oregon chapter of Dining For Women, a dinner giving circle. Oncea month, a group gets together for a potluck meal, and they take themoney they would have spent going to a restaurant and donate it tothe nonprofit that Dining For Women is sponsoring that month. Bypooling their donations with those of the other chapters throughoutthe country, they can have a bigger impact than if they were todonate individually.Empowering Women Each month, Dining For Women (DFW) supports a differentorganization in a different country throughout the developingworld. The organizations always focus on grassroots programs withmissions that involve educating and empowering women and girls.The programs foster access to healthcare, education, and economicself-sufficiency. DFW believes that all women, no matter who theyare or where they live, deserve an opportunity to be self-sufficient.There are currently 160 DFW chapters in 39 states and threecountries, bringing in an average of $25,000 per month to donate tothe programs they support. At each dinner, members are educatedabout the particular organization they are supporting, and thedinner circles inspire members to broaden their global awareness,learn about gender inequities, and create lasting social changethrough the power of collective giving.DFW members also have the opportunity to travel once or twicea year to visit the developing countries and programs they havesupported. Patricia is in charge of DFW’s travel program and is alsoon their advisory board. Last March, she and other members visitedAfrica to meet some of the people they have assisted.“We went to Kenya and Uganda and the trips were back-to-backso participants could go on one or both,” says Patricia. “They weredesigned as best-of-both-worlds adventures that combined animalsafaris and meetings with women that we had supported in the past.The purpose was to deepen our connections with these women, seewhere they lived, and meet them face-to-face. In Kenya, we visitedwith business mentors from The BOMA Fund, located in remotenorthern Kenya. In Uganda, we met with BeadForLife and stayedin their Friendship Village, being paired withfamilies to experience how these women live ona day-to-day basis.Becoming a Volunteer“It was an eye-opening experience. I hadnever encountered poverty on such a profoundlevel, and yet felt the truth of how we are nodifferent from each other. ‘There but for thegrace of God go I’ never felt more meaningful.Nicholas Kristoff, columnistand co-author of the book , talksabout how we in America have ‘won the birthlottery,’ and I felt this so keenly. We are soincredibly privileged in this country, and I feela responsibility to share the comparative greatwealth and many blessings that I’ve been given.” Although Patricia has done volunteer work for much of her adultlife, as she got older the focus of that giving back has gone more andmore toward women’s issues. She began to learn about the plightof women in the developing world and was sponsoring a womanthrough Women for Women International, as was her friend Jana.Jana told Patricia about Dining for Women, and she and Patricia www.centralcatholic.org
decided to start a chapter together in Corvallis, Oregon, where shewas living at the time. They ran the Corvallis chapter for two yearsuntil Patricia moved up to Portland. Then Patricia started anotherchapter in Portland with two other friends, and that group hasbeen meeting now for two years. Patricia has also mentored 17other chapters as they were getting started in locations all over thePacific Northwest.Since Patricia’s involvement, DFW has tackled a variety of subjectsand learned about many countries. Educating themselves aboutthe world and the women they’re supporting is as important asthe funds they collect. Some of the programs they’ve supportedfocus on creating jobs with the help of micro-loans; providingscholarships for girls to help keep them in school; increasing thehealth of mothers and babies through safer birthing practicesand providing supplies and facilities; expanding food security invulnerable regions by introducing new uses of indigenous crops;and helping to stop human trafficking/sexual slavery by providingfunds for safe houses for the rescued girls, and education to helpthem re-integrate into society.Patricia believes that her whole upbringing as a Catholic embeddedin her the idea that we are all equal in God’s eyes, and that we mustcare for (and about) all our human family, whether they live nextdoor or a world away. The idea of empowering women is somethingthat has grown in her over the last 15 years or so, with the workshe has doneleading women’sgroups, breastcancer supportgroups (she is asurvivor herself),and domesticabuse supportgroups. Duringthe training shedid to work withdomestic abusesurvivors, she sawa video that talkedabout the womenin the past 150 years who havededicated their lives to bringing about the equality of women – fromensuring that women could own and inherit property to helping toget the vote. She realized that these changes were not all that longago.“I saw that all the rights I took for granted were won by the bloodand sweat of many women in the past, and that I was standing ontheir shoulders,” Patricia says. “I knew in that moment that mylife’s work was with women. Through DFW, I’ve learned how manywomen around the world still do not have these basic rights. I feelhonored to be a part of a group that educates women in the firstworld about these issues, while actively supporting organizationswhose mission is to bring about those rights and elevate thestandard of living for the world’s poorest women and girls.”Future PlansPatricia says that DFW is expanding its travel program this year,with trips to Peru in May and to Nepal in November. She iscoordinating the Nepal trip, for which DFW is partnering withHeifer International to visit women’s programs in rural areas of thecountry. The group will also travel with another organization theysupported in 2008, OneHeart, which helps to bring safer birthingpractices to rural women. They will be trekking to one of thevillages that OneHeart works in, and they will stay in tents and meetwith the women whose programs they helped to fund. Dining For Women’s goal is to grow to 1,500 chapters, which wouldallow them to increase support for featured programs to $2.3million each year. The organization welcomes interested women tojoin a local chapter and learn about changing the world, one dinnerat a time.
Page 1 and 2: Central Catholic’s InnovativeBase
Page 3 and 4: Dear Alumni and Friends,Greetings i
Page 5 and 6: Central Catholic International Stud
Page 7 and 8: Meet Our CoachBryan Jack, Boys’ L
Page 9 and 10: Reflecting how times change, Laurie
Page 11: “This is the number one school fo
Page 15 and 16: e Baseball Complex in South ToledoD
Page 17 and 18: CCHS Around the WorldJust a reminde
Page 19 and 20: Francis Patrick “Frank”Gilhoole
Page 21 and 22: section to open the weekend of reun
Page 23 and 24: Celebrity Wait March 19The 5th annu
Page 25: Crew Team Boats BlessedOn September

Winter 2011 - K-Space Web Page - Central Catholic High School

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