For Your Best Friend, For Your Daughter, For Your Own Peace of Mind
Donate for your friend who is fighting breast cancer, for your daughter who is just starting to use feminine products, and for your own peace of mind when you buy cleaning supplies at the grocery store.
Ready to act, Bryony and her allies worked to organize a conference called, ‘Finding Common Ground: Gender, Justice and the Environment.’ The conversations that preceded and proceeded the conference sparked something big—the founding of a new environmental organization, the first of its kind—Women’s Voices for the Earth. Women’s Voices first opened its doors in 1995 with a mission to ‘build bridges with each other, strengthen our collective voice and work to create a society that is ecologically sustainable and socially just.’
With a budget of only $9,000 dollars and a staff of two, this tiny but powerful organization made a big impact. They started locally—reducing pollution from a nearby container mill, stopping the proposed gold mine on Montana’s Blackfoot River, and decreasing the routine pesticide spraying of noxious weeds by state and local agencies. By taking on difficult and important issues while emphasizing women’s leadership, Women’s Voices was making a name for itself and doing something the movement had never seen before—empowering everyone to join the fight.
Today, Women’s Voices for the Earth has a network of tens of thousands of powerful, visionary women nationwide who are working to empower consumers, enact health-protective laws and drive corporate accountability and transparency. Together, we’re taking on the toxic chemicals that harm our health and communities—chemicals that are causing breast cancer, birth defects, asthma, reproductive problems and more. Thanks to you, our campaigns are making a national impact. In the last three years alone, we’ve experienced exponential growth, and celebrated many successes, including:
- Changing the face of the industry—we’ve convinced corporate giants like Procter & Gamble, Clorox and SC Johnson to disclose harmful ingredients and begin to eliminate carcinogens and reproductive toxins from their products.
- Guiding government conversation on toxic chemicals and advancing critical legislation like the Robin Danielson Act, which would require the National Institutes of Health to research the health impacts of chemicals used in a wide range of feminine care products. (Check out the New York Times’ article on our recent Detox the Box victory.)
- Ensuring that women’s voices are heard by lawmakers and agency leaders. We hosted salon workers on a trip to DC to lobby for safe cosmetics; their stories were heard by members of Congress, as well as representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
In recognition of our anniversary and in celebration of the waves we’ve made together, we’ve set off on our most ambitious fundraising campaign to date, with a goal of raising $100,000 dollars to propel us into our next 20 years. We need your help to get there. This holiday season, please make an anniversary gift to Women’s Voices for the Earth. Donate for your friend who is fighting breast cancer, for your daughter who is just starting to use feminine products, and for your own peace of mind when you buy cleaning supplies at the grocery store. Donate in recognition of the important work you have done in making the world a safer, healthier place for all. We wish you a happy and healthy holiday season!
In solidarity,
Erin Switalski
Executive Director
P.S.: If this is your first gift to Women’s Voices, it will be matched 100% by the New Priorities Foundation–don’t miss this chance to double your impact!
