31 Days of Women In Power campaign looks to empower women

WILKES-BARRE — Linda Armstrong of Dress for Success said the region is in the midst of a female recession.

To address this, Armstrong and Holly Pilcavage, executive director at Coal Creative, are spearheading a campaign built on empowering women — 31 Days of Women In Power.

Those 31 days will all be in March as Pilcavage and Armstrong and several others on the committee set out to reverse the pandemic downturn and fuel “an astronomical rise” in the effort to build awareness for Dress for Success, while raising funds to directly impact the women it serves now and will serve in the future.

The mission of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Coal Creative is a full-service creative agency focused on fueling your website, video, design, social media, and strategy.

“What is going on right now is a female recession — that is women have lost jobs or have been unable to work at rates much higher than our male counterparts,” Armstrong said. “This is due to different reasons, such as the types of jobs traditionally held by women and the fact that with children not in school, women are at home educating their children.”

Armstrong said the campaign of 31 Days of Women In Power will help provide the resources needed to help those women that are going to need help more than ever.

“We stand ready to help our sisters, our mothers, our daughters and any woman that needs a hand up during this critical time,” Armstrong said.

Pilcavage agreed and offered her take on why the creative campaign is so needed at this time.

“When one woman rises, we all rise,” Pilcavage said.”And this campaign is an effort to make exactly that happen. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen an astronomical rise in women leaving or losing their jobs for a variety of valid reasons. When the time comes, many of those women locally will need the assistance Dress For Success Luzerne County provides day in and day out.”

Pilcavage added that the campaign also offers an incredible opportunity to feature 31-plus women and organizations who stand in support of empowering women.

“There’s a ripple effect here that will impact our local community far beyond what we can see right in front of us,” Pilcavage said. “And I am honored to have one small ounce of a direct impact on that possibility.”

The concept

Pilcavage explained that every year Dress for Success worldwide shares a concept for International Women’s Day. Over the holiday (2020) she was Google-searching to see if they started to release the 2021 concept.

“They did and it was focused on highlighting 23 Fortune 500 C-suite executives throughout the world,” Pilcavage said. “I thought, we can take this local, and it doesn’t have to be high-level execs, but rather any woman who deserves that spotlight.”

Pilcavage said she then went to work and started outlining the concept over the next two weeks and came up with the 31 Days of Women In Power event for Luzerne County — a campaign set to raise the much=needed dollars and awareness for Dress for Success here in Luzerne County and an opportunity to spotlight the incredible women who serve this community in various roles every single day.

About 31 Days of

Women In Power

Name of Campaign: 31 Days of Women In Power

Benefiting: Dress For Success Luzerne County

In Partnership with: Greater Wyoming Valley Women’s Network

Individuals, organizations, and businesses have been invited to choose a donation level to highlight a woman or their organization’s women. There are 31 slots available — 18 are currently filled, 13 remain.

The campaign is built on empowering women. There is a ripple effect. The campaign will highlight women throughout Luzerne County — especially those that always don’t get the spotlight they deserve.

All proceeds raised go to Dress For Success Luzerne County, which is the next layer of the ripple effect. Those of us, and our organizations and businesses that are able to give back will be directly impacting the women who benefit from the services provided by Dress for Success Luzerne County.

Pilcavage said in addition to spotlighting the 31 women/organizations throughout the month, there will be some surprise features popping up.

The campaign is also tied to the International Women’s Day Virtual Event taking place on Monday, March 8, at 12 p.m. featuring keynote speaker Chef Aliza Green.

In-kind sponsors:

PA Live!

Brittany Boote Photographs

Lamar Advertising

Times Leader

Coal Creative

Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber

AxelRad Screen Printing — they will simultaneously run a t-shirt campaign: https://axelradshop.com/womeninpower/shop/home

More info on t-shirts / in-kind sponsor collaboration: Brittany Boote will be taking photos of women wearing the Women In Power t-shirts. We will be designing billboards using these photos and then Lamar is putting them throughout Luzerne County for the month of March.

Campaign Committee:

Holly K. Pilcavage, , Coal Creative, Campaign Committee Chair.

Linda Armstrong, Dress for Success (DFS) Luzerne County

Jessica Cronauer of Leadership Wilkes Barre and Chair of Dress for Success Luzerne County Board of Directors.

Amber Loomis, Osterhout Library and DFS LC Board Member

Haley Bianco, PA Live! and DFS LC Board Member

Kerry Miscavage, Times Leader and DFS LC Board Member and Co-Chair of Women’s Network

Susan Magnotta, Diamond City Partnership and Co-Chair of Women’s Network

Lindsay Griffin, Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber

Michaela Benczkowski, Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber