By Gabriella Bancheri
On Friday March 22, the Stockton Women’s Leadership Council hosted its first annual Excellence in Mentoring Awards, an event that offered a delicious breakfast and a wealth of great conversation. The Council awarded four women—three mentors and one mentee—to acknowledge their hard work, professional tenacity, and continuous community support.
Among the awardees were A Meaningful Purpose at Reed’s Farm, Michele Myers-Reid, training manager at Caesars Entertainment, Andrea Steinberg, CEO of Jewish Family Services, and Tina Byrne, a Stockton alum and NYU master’s graduate who is now an account manager at Suasion Communications.
While it was wonderful to be a cheerleader for these incredible women during this event, it was equally rewarding to simply chat with other mentors and Council supporters over crepes and coffee. Starting my day surrounded by such motivated and intelligent women was only one of the positive residual effects of the event. I even had the chance to do a bit of networking and lots of learning.
Accepted by Cookie Till, co-founder of A Meaningful Purpose at Reed’s Farm, the Community Leadership award is given to recognize a community leader that invests both time and funds into mentoring initiatives. As Cookie shared, A Meaningful Purpose strives to not only mentor community leaders but create and sustain “opportunities for underserved populations” to ensure a lasting change.
Michele, who was given a Mentoring Champion Award, received the award for her continual support of her mentees, who handed over the award and sang her praises for her genuine interest in and encouragement of her mentees’ success.
Andrea Steinberg was awarded the Impact Mentor Award, designated to recognize a mentor who has made a significant difference in the personal and professional lives of her mentees, and Tina Byrne was awarded the SWLC Student Leadership Award, given to a student who truly maximizes the benefit of their mentor’s support.
Aside from these awards, The Council’s primary mission is to empower women and promote women’s networking events to foster community engagement. But it’s events like these that truly make all the difference to the community of professionals and showcase how truly influential initiatives like the Stockton Women’s Leadership Council are.
After leaving this ceremony, I felt empowered by the success of women in my very own community, proud to have graduated from such an institution myself, and motivated to give back to this initiative in any way I can.
A few moving words from Tina Byrne’s acceptance speech struck me the most: “This organization gave me the confidence to know I was more than I thought I was.”
The Council and its mentors not only give young women like Tina the confidence to believe in themselves, but the confidence to know they were always the strong women who get the degrees, accept the awards, or become the CEOs.
They just needed a few encouraging women in their corner to help them prove it.
Gabriella is a Ventnor City resident and graduate of the University of London with an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing. Her writing is featured in a variety of digital publications ranging from food and beverage to literature to ecotourism.
