Dorothy: [00:00:00] What would you say if you knew that one in five women in the Houston area do not have any kind of health insurance? What would you say if you knew that four in ten women in the Houston area have absolutely no kind of support, social, cultural, any kind of community to turn to? What if you were one of those women?
That’s what Linda Rhodes, the Executive Director of the Women’s Fund for Health and Resiliency, is here to talk to us about. Her organization has helped women and young girls for years learn more about their health, learn more about how to cope with life, and it is a resource that you’re going to want to know about.
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So Linda, tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you come from and education and the jobs you’ve had.
Linda: Well, I’m a native Houstonian. My parents moved here, um, from Dubena in Schillenberg, Texas in 1957. Yes. A long time ago. So I’m native to Houston. I went to San Jacinto College. I’m a, I went to Deer Park High School. I still live in Deer Park. I can’t get away from there. I love my hometown. I have two children, uh, two, uh, sons, uh, Randy and Jeffrey, we’re both very close. We’re all very [00:02:00] close. We live within miles of each other. So I just can’t get away from Deer Park. I’m raising my granddaughter. She’s 15, going on 35. And it is a complete shift from raising boys.
Dorothy: Oh yes, absolutely.
Linda: Oh yes, raising girls is so much different than raising boys.
Dorothy: But now your whole work life is about girls.
Linda: It is, it is. And, um, I started as a bookseller.
Dorothy: I saw that and I saw how you, uh, was, you even led something very important a few years ago that had to do with booksellers and authors, writers.
Linda: Right. I started as a volunteer. I ran a children’s only bookstore and toy store. I actually taught cooking lessons to five year olds. Yes, I was, did storytelling. I did a variety of things. [00:03:00] Um, but I was president of the Houston Area Booksellers Association back when there were independent booksellers or an array of them.
And As president, it was my responsibility to serve on the book and author committee, uh, book and author dinner committee with the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Public Library. And I met a delightful woman during that time. Her name was Susan Bischoff. She was one of the first managing editors or assistant managers.
Female, yes, exactly. And we were in Washington, D. C. and she said, You’re so good at this volunteering and raising funds. You should become a professional. I said, Well, how would I do that? She goes, Well, I know of a job. And she was on the board of the March of Dimes and she said, You need to apply for this job. And it was for Walk America, which is now March for Babies, their largest fundraising event at that time. And it was breakfast and [00:04:00] walking for 20, 000 people. It’s like—
Dorothy: Oh you jumped from volunteer to running the whole show.
Linda: At one point in my career I knew exactly how many porta potties you needed to have. Something I never, ever thought I would ever need to know. And, uh, during my tenure at the Houston area, in the Houston March of Dimes office, we grew our, our revenues from like 2 million to 5 million. And we increased our number of participants from 20,000 to 40,000. So.
Dorothy: Oh my goodness, Linda.
Linda: Yes. That’s huge. So I worked in our national office for a bit and then I finished my career at March of Dimes and at the state office, direct working with 18 different division offices coordinating their walks. And, you know, being in the not for profit sector, you have to be passionate about what you [00:05:00] do. And so I was passionate about moms and babies.
My, my mother had a baby that didn’t survive in 1960. It was born preterm. And so, it was a passion mission for me. So, I’ve always been in my career in the not for profit sector, I’ve always been involved in voluntary health organizations. I worked for March of Dimes for 13 years and then I went on to American Heart for three years and I did some consulting and that’s how I landed at the Women’s Fund.
Dorothy: What attracted you to the Women’s Fund? For health and resiliency, right?
Linda: Exactly. It was a challenge at the time that I took the job. We were serving about 1,500 women and girls annually, and we, I noticed that the revenues were going down on a regular basis, and, and it was They had a good mission. I knew they had a good mission.
I didn’t, you know, I had been a [00:06:00] consultant for them. So I understood the fundraising aspects of it and I was like, this is what I can do. I can make, I can, I can turn this around and change it. Now what I’m not doing I am not a program person, I don’t have that background in public health, but I’ve surrounded myself with really, really intelligent and bright people who are.
And my board challenged me at the time to, to drive more participants to the Women’s Fund. And my philosophy in fundraising has always been if you have more mission output, you’re going to raise more money. Fundraising and, is, is storytelling. And we had a good story to tell. We had solid programs that were written by incredible people, uh, with fascinating backgrounds.
And everything we do is evidence based and based on the science. So we have curriculum based classes, we have one [00:07:00] time classes. We do them for both girls and women. And so I’ve immersed myself and I know enough about our programs that my staff tells me, you’ve said enough, let us do the rest.
Dorothy: You’re right. But now, What exactly does the Women’s Fund do?
Linda: The Women’s Fund provides free health education classes to women and girls. We also publish four publications each year in both Spanish and English. And we provide all of our services free. We have two, well actually we have three different curriculum based classes right now we’re about to implement. We’re in the piloting phase of a new one for women that’ll be starting this fall. We have our What About Me classes, which teach young girls resiliency skills and set part one. So we talk to them about positive thinking, decision making, goal setting, [00:08:00] all the things that are so incredible. Important and critical to being resilient. And then we show it how, show them in part two, how to apply ’em to their everyday basic health needs.
Dorothy: What are the ages of these girls?
Linda: We start at nine and above. So our classes, um, are suitable for fourth grade and above. Typically, the where we’d see most of our class is falling in our What About Me because it’s 10, it’s a 10 session curriculum. It actually go in their 10 consecutive weeks with the same 10 to 15 young ladies, so we’re building community. with them and giving them a safe place to speak and ask questions and learn about their health and about all these important topics that we assume we’re talking about at home, but we know that we’re not.
No, we’re not. And so what we’re finding is it’s typically fifth grade through middle school that go through [00:09:00] our What About Me classes.
Dorothy: Yeah. Is this during school year?
Linda: It’s during the school year.
Dorothy: Really?
Linda: It can be during the school day. It can be before school. It can be after school. We do some programming with other organizations where it might be an after school program. And so they allocate one period of the day and we can go in through the life skills class. We can go in through PE. It’s really, you know, the girls are typically selected by a counselor or a teacher that sees that they may need a little extra something. And we do pre and post evaluations on them. And while it’s not our program where we see the most, um, young ladies. It is the most impactful because we’re seeing them for 10 consecutive weeks.
Dorothy: So Linda, do you think there is a, well, I know there’s a difference, but what do you think is a major difference between when you [00:10:00] were a young girl and when I was a young girl with, with our young communities now?
Linda: Social media. Where they get their information. I think we’re, um, I think the family dynamic has changed. I was lucky enough or fortunate enough to go to a Luncheon that University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work had several years ago, I mean it’s probably been seven or eight years ago, and I got to hear Dr. Perry, who’s a trauma specialist, talk about one of the things that really stuck with me. And this is so re— resonates with me because I come from, well I only have one brother, I have 25 first cousins. And we’re, yes, on just on one side. So he said the difference today from generation, uh, generation, our generation [00:11:00] is that where your immediate family, that family was, unit was 20 to 40 people like my family.
Now the average child has a family of maybe three.
Dorothy: Oh, yeah.
Linda: Because we’re so disconnected. And when I look at my dynamic with my granddaughter, She has maybe three or four cousins. I had 25 on one side, and I’m still connected to most of them. We communicate via text and we talk and we take trips together. But, you know, I think that that is a big change. And then you pull in social media and misinformation and where they’re getting their data.
Dorothy: Do you think they’re more frightened? Girls of the past?
Linda: I don’t know that they’re frightened. I think they’re experiencing more, [00:12:00] I, I can’t really say if it’s they’re experiencing it more or we’re talking about it more when you think about the violence in homes, um, the sexual abuse, things like that. I think we’ve become more vocal about it.
Dorothy: So, when you started, it was 1,500 girls? Yes. And now it is?
Linda: Well, right now, last year we, we served 9,600 women and girls.
Dorothy: Oh my goodness.
Linda: Pre, in 2019, we were serving 12,000. So, We’re still working our way back up to our pre pandemic numbers.
Dorothy: But during the pandemic, you made a real shift that actually has turned out very, very good for the organization.
Linda: Exactly. We went to a virtual format. Where we were presenting our programs virtually on a regular basis. I think the big shift there was we didn’t really know who our audience was. [00:13:00] And we didn’t have that one on one contact. And we know for a fact we were not reaching the adolescent girls. Because a lot of our programming takes place in the schools.
And so, if you remember during the pandemic, the schools were having challenges because the communities we serve are at risk or underserved. Well, everyone assumes that you have internet. Well, sometimes the only internet you have is at the library or at school. You may not have that access at home. You may not have a laptop. You may not have that. And that was one of the big challenges the school districts also, especially in those communities where we serve. primarily we serve.
Dorothy: And those communities are, which ones?
Linda: Well, we serve a lot of the, uh, Fifth Ward, Third Ward, uh, Sunnyside, you know, even Sharpstown, a lot of different areas. We, on an [00:14:00] annual basis, we’re probably in 25 to 50 different zip codes each year.
Dorothy: Goodness. So.
Linda: We’re all over the city.
Dorothy: Yeah, you are. So, as uh, The Rose relied on the Women’s Fund. Of course, back then it was called the Women’s Fund for Health and Research.
Linda: Health Education and Research. Health Education and Research.
Dorothy: But I can remember when y’all were the only ones that provided free literature. And that was all we had. I mean, we didn’t have the funds to go and print things up. And it was so important because you had what I call diaries or journals that women, young women could use. But now that has grown 10 fold or 100 fold.
Linda: Right.
Dorothy: And you have all of these different, uh, education pieces, which are really good. I mean, I was going through one of them for the young girls, and it, it covers everything, and it’s very, um, [00:15:00] what do you say? It’s, it’s like, this happens, and this is what you need to be prepared for, and this is how you handle it. I thought, you know, even any young girl could. from that. From being able to just read that things like this, things that are not expected things that you’ve heard about, can happen, and here’s how you handle it.
Linda: Right. Our publications and our classes focus on a variety of things. We don’t just talk about the basic health needs. We talk about your emotional wellness, your mental health, and one of our newest programs is called What About My Mind? Which explains the mind, how your brain works. And goes into stress and coping, instead of trying to cover a lot of different things, or a lot of different things in a 45 minute session, we’ve broken it into six sessions.
So we talk about eating disorders, a [00:16:00] lot of different mental anxiety, um, There’s just so much that’s going on that we have, you know, after the pandemic, we wrote this during the pandemic, but immediately following the pandemic, we realized and we were getting calls about mental health sessions because we do another program for girls called Power Up the HEAT. HEAT stands for health education anytime. And we did, we created that program in 2016 to address the issues for schools that couldn’t. Allocate 10 consecutive weeks. So it covers a lot of the topics or it can cover the topics that we have in our ten week session, but we also find that they ask for trending topics. So, trending topics could be bullying, could be a relational aggression, could be personal hygiene. You know, we assume that our mothers are going to tell us.
Dorothy: My mother [00:17:00] didn’t, did yours?
Linda: No, my mother still hasn’t told me about sex and I’m 66 years old.
Dorothy: I know, I know.
Linda: And so I’ve got two kids, surprise, surprise. But, you know, and—
Dorothy: But still, that was just not talked about.
Linda: It just wasn’t talked about. Personal hygiene, you know, there’s just so many things and that they don’t talk about. And we teach girls to find a trusted adult that you can confide in, whether it’s your, a teacher, a counselor, an aunt, whoever that is. And you know, that’s one of the things that my granddaughter and I talk about is she goes, tells me I’m her trusted adult. Yeah. But do you really trust me and tell me everything?
Dorothy: Right.
Linda: Yeah. So, um, but some of the barriers is cultural. And those taboos, it could be religious, why we don’t talk about [00:18:00] things, but there’s just so much that isn’t talked about.
Dorothy: So true. When did, when did y’all decide to change the name to include Resiliency?
Linda: We actually changed the name in 2015. However, we, we, we funded 58 or more, I’m trying to think, numbers have evaded me, but we funded more than 1. 4 million dollars in research. We started as an organization that did research grants for women, for investigators or researchers who were doing work in the women’s arena, menopause, you know, a variety of different topics. And in about 2004, the board took a, started talking about are we making the impact we want to because By 2008, you think about all the different organizations like American [00:19:00] Heart, who was doing so much research into women’s heart disease, was our $25,000, $5,000, $10,000 really making the impact we wanted to.
So we made the switch and went into a public health model. And that’s when we started our What About Me classes, and they’ve evolved into a class that looks like What About Me for women. It’s 10 weeks. It’s called the Women’s Health Advocacy Program. We have offer smart lunches for women, a variety of different topics.
And we went into, to the public health model presenting programming. And then we really started promoting our publications. We still do our House My Health, which is the health journal you were talking about. Um, so we changed and we just caught up and changed the name to R— The Women’s Fund for Health Education and Resiliency in 2015. That’s when the board we we are very slow as a not as a board, but we [00:20:00] very thoughtful and thought provoking before we make big changes.
Dorothy: Non profits though are historically thoughtful.
Linda: Yes.
Dorothy: I mean it takes a while.
Linda: Yes, it does. Yes. So I think we talked about it for two years So.
Dorothy: So what’s been the biggest challenge since you’ve been there? Leaving 2020 aside.
Linda: That was a challenge. Right now I would say the education system. Uh, we, of those 9,000 women and girls we see, we see about 53 percent of our classes are for young ladies, young girls. And the, the, the barriers we’re facing right now is getting the school districts, it’s become harder and harder to jump through that barrier and get in there.
So, um, you know, whether it’s from the fact [00:21:00] that they’re testing all the time, are now the barriers with the HIC. You know, we have to have special credentials, and you have to be a certified this, and you have to but there’s budget cuts. They don’t have the the resources within the school districts. I mean—
Dorothy: But you have to have partnership.
Linda: We have to have partnership.
Dorothy: And if you, if they don’t have the resources to provide.
Linda: Exactly. Yes. Even the, so for example, with HIC, they let go the majority of their wraparound specialists. Well, we partnered very closely with their wraparound specialists and that wraparound specialists were the individuals at each school who were to bring in additional resources the kids need.
So right now, they’re so focused on learning, you think about the people, the children that are left behind. I think one of the [00:22:00] things about our classes that are so important important and vital is those 10 weeks we work with the same facilitator that can be a volunteer, one of our staff people. It’s the same 10 to 15 girls. They build this community. And if you know much about resiliency, one of the things about being resilient is being connected.
Dorothy: Right. Absolutely.
Linda: Is the connectivity. And they become, we have a question box at the end of each session. And each girl is required to fill out or turn in an index card. They may or may not have a question. There’s time during the class for questions and answers, but sometimes Girls aren’t comfortable asking those questions out loud, so every session or every semester there’s at least one instance where we identify a girl who’s turning to question how do I know if I’m being sexually abused? How do I, [00:23:00] I’m in a, my father hits me or something like that. And so, you know, did they tell anybody else? One of the other barriers in schools today, I believe, is the fact that not every school has a school counselor, or a school counselor for three or four hundred kids, and how do they get the need, the care that they need.
Dorothy: Right. Those are definitely challenges.
Linda: There are challenges.
Dorothy: Can an individual cover the cost of a 10 week program?
Linda: They, they can. They can. Um—
Dorothy: So that’s one way someone could —
Linda: Get involved.
Dorothy: —get involved.
Linda: They can volunteer. They can come in and volunteer if you have time. It’s a big commitment to teach a What About Me class. You don’t have to be any kind of special training. You just have to be willing to commit an hour to two hours every week for 10 weeks, we do a Train the Trainer model where we teach you [00:24:00] everything you need to know. You don’t answer, and the good thing about our classes, is you don’t answer the questions that day. You, we go back and if you’re not comfortable, everything we do is evidence based, so we encourage facilitators not to answer difficult questions, to go back and do the research because it’s not about my opinion or your opinion or their opinion, it’s about what does the science say.
Dorothy: What does the science say, right.
Linda: What does the science say? Because we can all find out everything we need to know from Dr. Google.
Dorothy: Yes, we can.
Linda: Yes, we can. And how often is it accurate?
Dorothy: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So, the, you recently had a seminar that really covered some, I didn’t get to go, but I received your information afterwards. Really covered some very interesting stats about girls and what’s going on. And I, I just thought, what was the one thing in, [00:25:00] in that seminar that really surprised you, you felt strongly about, you wanted to get it out?
Linda: Well, I don’t know that there were any big surprises for me. For me, because—
Dorothy: Well, but you’re in it all the time.
Linda: I’m in it all the time. I think it’s alarming that Texas Ranks in the bottom quarter in almost every category—
Dorothy: every category—
Linda: every category on health and wellness I think it’s alarming that we have such a large amount of women dying from you know, um maternal health maternal health. Yes. But having been with March of Dimes and we’ve actually done a doc talk on that on the maternal mortality rate But the fact that and that was in 2018. It’s not any better today. I remember when I worked for March of Dimes, one in seven babies were born pre term, or the infant [00:26:00] mortality rate was seven in a hundred, and things haven’t improved.
Dorothy: But one of the underlying issues on that, if I’m remembering right, was again that connection to community. Yes, you didn’t have someone to talk to or to find out or to turn to during that time.
Linda: Right, and think about When you’ve had a baby, you, for nine months or however long, you, maybe you find out when you’re six weeks long, you’re seeing your doctor on a regular basis. Okay? You’re seeing him once a month, every two weeks, at one point, once a week. You have that baby, You go home, you don’t see him again for six weeks. And then after that you’re fine, you know? And so there’s so many determinants that, you know, play a role in that.
Dorothy: And so many body changes and—
Linda: body changes. It took you nine months to, for your horns to get this way. And then in six weeks you’re supposed to be, boom, you’re okay. And I think the [00:27:00] alarming part of the maternal mortality rate is that black women are more at risk. I think it was 41%.
Dorothy: Yes.
Linda: It was just, it was alarming.
Dorothy: Alarming.
Linda: That, but it wasn’t surprising.
Dorothy: Now that’s kind of scary. Alarming but not surprising.
Linda: Not surprising.
Dorothy: And I, I understand even in, in breast cancer, it is our black community that is more at risk.
Linda: Yes.
Dorothy: It, it, it just keeps, it’s like every aspect of life. There’s another issue they’re dealing with that perhaps the white woman isn’t or you know, so it’s—
Linda: hard to see and I think that I then this is my opinion. I feel like it is, uh, they’re not listened to.
Dorothy: Well, that’s, that’s a dilemma of women to [00:28:00] begin with.
Linda: Exactly.
Dorothy: Yes, and when you don’t have that resilience, when you don’t have that personal permission to talk or to speak up, I mean, I think that’s what the Women’s Fund really does. I mean, we can, you know, we can talk a lot about programs, but it’s giving that young girl The ability to speak up and to say, this isn’t right for me.
Linda: Young girl, women.
Dorothy: Women, yes.
Linda: I remember arguing with my OBGYN when I had my hysterectomy. He goes, well, we’re going to take you over. He said. No, you’re not! And he asked me, why are you so worried about this? I said, because if they don’t need to go, they don’t need to go.
Dorothy: Right.
Linda: I said, and so we went back and forth. He goes, you are obstinate. I said, no, I’m not. I’m an advocate. I’m an advocate for myself. I know what I want. And I think that that’s the most important thing we can teach our young ladies. Our young [00:29:00] girls and our peers, because you can be an advocate, you can, you don’t have to tell, you need to speak up.
Dorothy: Yes, yes, and who, who has more influence on us than a friend?
Linda: Exactly.
Dorothy: Really, really enjoy when you get down to it.
Linda: Yes. You, you know, you’ve got to speak up when you’re in the doctor’s office.
Dorothy: And you’ve got to speak up when you know something isn’t right.
Linda: Exactly.
Dorothy: And, and I, I will tell you that’s so hard sometimes.
Linda: It is.
Dorothy: It’s easier not to say anything, ignore the situation, and, no, I, I absolutely agree with you.
Linda: And it took me a long time to get there.
Dorothy: Well, it took us all. And thank goodness the Women’s Fund is giving so many women and girls that chance to at least know about it. I don’t think I even knew I could do that until I had to.
Linda: I know.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Linda: I know.
Dorothy: All right. I want you to take just a few minutes to tell us how can someone be a member, a volunteer? What do they have to do?
Linda: [00:30:00] Well, membership is, is basically a donation to the Women’s Fund, but you do get invited to some fun events.
Dorothy: Yes. And get members Monthly events, right?
Linda: Uh, we do quarterly events. We do programmatic events. Which are always free, which you can come to and you’ll get invitations too. But we also do member events. We do four monthly, we do four, four luncheons a year at Tony’s. This, we have one coming. We just had one in September, um, on Healthy Vision with Dr. Morgan Jones. We’ll be having another one in December. We do them February, May, September and December and who doesn’t love lunch at Tony’s?
Dorothy: Oh, yes. Oh, yes Yes, that’s a treat.
Linda: But one of the things that when I came on [00:31:00] board is every I made sure of is every function we have, there’s a good for you message.
Dorothy: What is that?
Linda: It’s something about your health. Oh, and so at our luncheons, at our membership luncheons, we have a 20, 30 minute talk by a doctor or could be a therapist, it could be something inspirational, but we bring in a guest speaker. At our Fall, at our Rocking Resiliency Luncheon, we have an inspirational keynote speaker who’ll come in and talk about being your, you know, advocating for yourself or, you know, resiliency, whatever it may be. We do an education session at our Rockin Resiliency Luncheon, and this year we had young ladies that are high schoolers that have talked about the challenges they have, and they’re gonna talk about what you and I just talked about. Advocating for yourself, knowing that something’s going on with your body or your mind, or you know, [00:32:00] Or, you know, something just isn’t right and speaking up and not being, um, Not, I don’t want to use the word afraid, but it is, you know, it could be fear. What’s this doctor going to think about me? What’s this therapist going to think if I question what they’re saying?
Dorothy: Um, but that’s so powerful. To hear from the girls who are involved in it.
Linda: Exactly. Yes, and it’s girls speaking to girls. So I think that’s very powerful.
Dorothy: So tell me your website.
Linda: thewomensfund.Org. Www.thewomensfund.Org
Dorothy: That simple.
Linda: It’s that simple. You can go online, you can, we have a place where if you wanna volunteer, you can go to the tab that says Get involved. You can fill out the form to say, be involved. You know, be a volunteer. We have a lot, we do lots on the weekends. Uh, we have partnered with the Bayou City Arts Festival. [00:33:00] We, uh, do health fairs on the weekends. So if you can’t volunteer during the week and want an opportunity to come spend a couple hours.
Dorothy: There is something for you.
Linda: There’s something for you. We have a lot of different things.
Dorothy: Well, I can’t imagine anything more powerful, more important than educating and supporting and encouraging uplifting others, other women, other other young girls than what the Women’s Fund is doing.
Linda: Well, thank you, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Well, thank you so much for being with us today.
Linda: Thank you for having me.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting, and brought to you by The rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast, share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using #LetsTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self care is [00:34:00] not selfish, it’s essential.
