THE JEANNETTE RANKIN FOUNDATION

Just as previous generations took up the gauntlet to work towards improving the lives of women, we too must pick up that gauntlet and take it further still.

Heroines.net is very pleased to feature the Jeannette Rankin Foundation as our first Golden Apple opportunity for you to become a Heroine (or Hero), by helping those who are helping women.

The Jeannette Rankin Foundation was started with seed money provided by a bequest from Jeannette Rankin. Rankin was a leading suffragist in the campaign to gain women the vote in Wyoming and the first woman elected to Congress. A pacifist, Rankin was the only person to cast a dissenting vote in Congress against entering both World War I and World War II.

A non-profit organization, the Foundation has patiently and persistently grown a very small bequest into a modest, but most heart rendering and worthy Women's Education Fund. It is supported by donations, membership dues, and interest from the endowment. It is managed by a volunteer Board of Directors and an Executive Director. The Foundation has been awarding scholarships to mature women seeking to improve their lives and those of their families through education since 1978. Awards are given annually in June to women throughout the United States. In 2001, 25 scholarships of $1,5000 each were awarded.

Heroines.net applauds the Foundation's policy allowing scholarship recipients to apply their awards in ways that meet financial hardships that would otherwise keep recipients from pursuing their education. The Foundation understands that it isn't just the cost of tuition, but it is also the meeting of other expenses such as the cost of child care or a car repair that may become an insurmountable obstacle to those women it seeks to help. This policy has proven its merits through the successes of those who have benefited from it.

"Educate a woman and you educate a home, a community and a nation!" is the motto of the Jeannette Rankin Foundation. The Foundation has lived up to its motto by helping, among others:

A widow and mother of a disabled child graduate from the University Of New Mexico School of Medicine's Physical Therapy Program

A mother of one who was disabled in an accident pursue a degree in accounting from Franklin Pierce College, New Hampshire

A battered woman pursue a degree in computer science at California State University

A Native American woman earn her BS degree in history from Northern Arizona University.

A battered woman pursue her degree in Botany, while working with a county sheriff's office to sensitize them to domestic violence, working full time as an administrative assistant to support her family, and working on a research project with a U. S. Forest Service scientist.

Each year, the Foundation receives thousands of inquiries from financially disadvantaged women all over the country, many more then it has scholarships to give.
Won't you be a Heroine and help them increase the number of women they can help by sending them a donation? Donation levels are listed below, and donations are tax deductible.

Student/Senior	$15	Founder's Circle	$150*
Individual	$25	Patron	$250*
Supporting	$50*	Benefactor	$500*
Sustaining	$100*	Award Donor	$1,500*

*May be designated "joint membership" by giving two names at the same address to be placed on the membership roster.

Please direct your donations or inquiries to:

The Jeannette Rankin Foundation
P. O. Box 6653
Athens, GA 30604

Attention: Andrea Tedrow, Executive Director

E-mail address: info@rankinfoundation.org