Greetings Ladies of ABWL!
Welcome to our new fiscal year, 2022-2023! I am honored to serve as your President this year. It has been a long time coming from the days of interning as a Seton Hall Law student, for ABWL’s co-founder, Judge Renee Jones Weeks, to now, over 25 years later, serving as President of this organization.
I recently returned from our end of year/new term “ABWL on Martha’s Vineyard” Retreat. I had the pleasure of sharing this time with several of our members, family and friends. It was also a time to reflect on this awesome undertaking as your President and how I want to proceed.
First, let me start by stating that I enjoyed my time as your President-Elect this past year, as I chaired several initiatives that included: ABWL on Martha’s Vineyard; My Sister’s Keepers; and, the Inaugural Golf Outing and Jazz Banquet.
Second, my recurring sentiment is that I care about the well-being and stories of us as Black women, and how we must first be there for ourselves before we can safely be there for others.
With that being said, my objective this year is to expound on our recent fundraiser theme “Celebrating Ourselves and Our Authenticity” – with an emphasis on self-care and mental health awareness.
The objective is to create a supportive network of self-care and mental health resources for our members. This can also be shared as an outreach message to the communities we serve. As a lawyer, mother of 2 children, new empty-nester and part-time caretaker of an elderly parent, I can personally relate to the need for moral support and mutual connection.
I also support the idea of creative fundraising throughout the year. Doing so will not only help maintain our scholarship fund, but it will also increase funds for our operating budget that will be used to meet our increasing administrative expenses and outreach efforts.
As such, we will continue with our Scholarship Golf Outing. And, as a separate fundraiser, we will have our Annual Scholarship Jazz Brunch, next Spring 2023.
Also, as we continue to plan ABWL’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, I challenge us all to increase the number of lifetime memberships to at least 50 (by year 2025), in honor of this milestone. We will call it “Lifetime 50 by 50”.
On an administrative note, we are grateful to have our current Administrative Assistant, Ms. Ann Watkins for another year as we transition. In the interim, we will consider possible replacements, including, but not limited to, a virtual assistant.
In closing, I look forward to working with our Executive Board, Committee Chairs and members to help bring the goals of ABWL to fruition, in a way that will honor our founders and ourselves.
In His Amazing Grace,
Kimberly D. Deal, Esq.
President, ABWL-NJ
2022-2023
