21st annual Women of Worth Expo this weekend
Taylor DeVary, Becky Holmen selected as WoW makeover recipients
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BLUE EARTH-- The 21st annual Southern Minnesota Women of Worth (WoW) Expo will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m on Saturday, Nov. 7 at the Blue Earth Area High School. Admission to the event is free.
This year's featured speaker will be Jasmine Brett Stringer, a keynote speaker, author, on-air TV personality, lifestyle blogger and podcast host from Minneapolis.
Stringer is a graduate of American University's Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C., and the author of award-winning book Seize Your Life: How to Carpe Diem Every Day. She also hosts her own podcast and lifestyle blog, Carpe Diem with Jasmine.
Stringer founded Share the Mic Minnesota in the summer of 2020, an organization dedicated to elevating the voices of women of color, inspiring action and allyship and giving Black and Brown women in Minnesota additional exposure through connection and engagement with new audiences.
She was named one of the "100 People to Know in 2021" by Twin Cities Business magazine, a Twin Cities Fearless Woman in 2017 and a Woman of Promise by the Girl Scouts in 2012. She received the 2020 TeamWomen Community Impact WaveMaker Award, was awarded as a Distinguished Alumna of American University and Ebony magazine featured her as one of its "30 Future Leaders Under the Age of 30 in America."
The Southern Minnesota WoW Expo helps raise funds to support survivors of domestic abuse in southern Minnesota, but it also works to remind women and domestic abuse survivors of their indisputable value.
As WoW's mantra states, "I am a woman of worth. Southern Minnesota Women of Worth shall be for the good and betterment of families in rural southern Minnesota through continued education about abuse, neglect and violence that takes place in rural areas, along with financial support of the program designed to help all victims of abuse."
The WoW Expo is the organization's annual fundraiser, intended to help raise the necessary funds to fulfill that mantra.
"We try to make the Expo an uplifting day for women," WoW president Kristin Woodwick explained. "This event is a chance for them to learn what WoW is all about."
This year's Expo opens at 9 a.m., and will host several vendor booths from all across southern Minnesota, representing both causes and home-based businesses. Food and drink will be available during the event, with lunch catered by the P-Pod.
The WoW's annual makeover reveal will take place at 11:30 a.m. Two women, Taylor DeVary and Becky Holmen, have been selected for the honor after an anonymous nomination.
Their new, head-to-toe looks will feature new outfits from Dikkens Decorating in Blue Earth, a hairstyling session courtesy of Lakeside Salon and Spa in Fairmont, makeup by Nicky Bell of Blue Earth, and a photo shoot with Misty Wolf of Winnebago. These were sponsored by Edward Jones - Chase Brandt.
The festivities continue with Stringer taking the microphone at 1 p.m. Following her presentation, the prize drawings will be held at 2 p.m.
Expo attendees who support WoW by watching the presentations and the makeover reveals, as well as by shopping the selection of vendors, can be assured their donations are funding a worthwhile cause.
Woodwick hopes plenty of people will consider donating time and funds to WoW's Expo to help Southern Minnesota WoW in its mission to combat more deaths by domestic violence.
"It could happen to anybody," Woodwick says. "You may even know somebody who is going through it."