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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - October 21, 2008
Connie Nahoolewa Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
October 21, 2008

Fort Worth, Texas Resident Wins Cash Award To Launch Computer Center For Low-Income Hispanic Women And Children


(New York, NY, October 21, 2008) - Fort Worth, Texas resident Connie Nahoolewa, 61, is one step closer to fulfilling her dream of creating a better tomorrow for her community. Connie was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 cash award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support individuals in their work to empower women. She is the seventh recipient of a Hello Tomorrow Fund award in Texas since the program launched in 2007, and was selected by a newly expanded panel of judges that now includes Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and actress Phylicia Rashad. Connie will use her award to launch a computer center in the Northside Inter-Church Agency (NICA) facility to teach computer skills, literacy, and also provide tutoring and ESL programs to low-income Hispanic women and their children.

The Fort Worth area is home to many Hispanic families. Sadly, the high school dropout rate within that community is between 50 and 60 percent and as a result, many young people are left with little or no reading and writing skills. Additionally, recent community surveys have shown that 80 percent of Hispanic families in the area do not own a computer, therefore placing them at a disadvantage in seeking jobs and access to resources. Since basic computer skills are a necessity for nearly every profession, especially jobs that pay living wages, this lack of skills creates a vicious cycle of poverty for many Hispanic families.

Connie joined NICA in 1999 as a volunteer and was hired fulltime as the director of the organization in 2003. NICA is a charitable organization that is non-denominational and provides emergency services, food, case management, crisis counseling, employment, education and many other supportive programs to the Fort Worth community. The aim of the organization is to aid and empower people to get back on their feet, strengthen their families, and ultimately to strengthen their neighborhoods. In focus groups with Hispanic women, the desire was repeatedly expressed to have their daughters receive a higher education so they could provide for their own families when they got older. In 2004, Connie created the Circle of Winners with that goal in mind -- to help young women attend college through mentoring at the high school level, and so far 75% of the participants from the first year are finishing their four-year degree. Since the program’s inception, Connie had always hoped to offer computer classes for both the older and younger generation of Hispanic women. Now, with the help of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, she will have that opportunity.

With support of the Hello Tomorrow Fund award, Connie will open a computer center in the NICA facility with 20 workstations. She will purchase ten computers and appropriate software to teach basic computer skills, literacy and ESL classes with the Hello Tomorrow Fund award, and US Representative Kay Granger’s office is donating 10 additional computers. Connie estimates that 170 women and 340 children will use the computer center during the first year for literacy programs, daytime ESL classes for stay-at-home moms, tutoring for youth, and night computer classes for working mothers. The computer center will be staffed by an all-volunteer team of coordinators and Circle of Winners participants, as well as community professionals. In addition, the mothers of Circle of Winners participants are planning a fundraising dinner to pay for any additional expenses for the computer center,. Connie will fulfill her dream of providing computer classes to her community in need while helping the Hispanic community make a fresh start by providing them with the tools needed to succeed and provide for their families.

Connie’s winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund met the criteria of clearly presenting unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including personal finance expert Suze Orman, actress Phylicia Rashad, Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and experts in business and grantmaking. “It is a huge barrier today to be without basic computer skills,” commented Sara Ferguson, The Duchess of York on Connie’s proposal. “I believe this program can make a big difference in the lives of underprivileged women.”

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