Important Questions Raised at the Mayor’s Summit for Women

On Tuesday, the Lawton’s Mayor hosted the Lawton’s Summit for Women ‘Stronger Women Make Stronger Families Make Stronger Communities.” The event aimed at targeting challenges our community needs to overcome.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Linda Dzialo, President and CEO of Great Expectations who said many women in the community have the leadership skills to facilitate the changes needed.

Several important questions were raised at the Summit for Women, for example, ‘are we making Lawton an area that our children will want to live in as adults?’, ‘what are Lawton’s primary strengths and vulnerabilities?’, ‘what do you see when you look ahead to Lawton in 2025?’

Many of the women who were at the event felt like ‘there is a major gap between what Lawton has to offer its residents in terms of family strengthening and what is known by the general populace.’

However, the women also noted that ‘the development of a common vision that could be shared by the City, businesses, economic development groups, educational bodies, health institutions and others would be a highly positive development.’

In my opinion, Lawton faces a communications problem- it seems to me that the citizens of Lawton are embracing the social media (Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) and digital as well. More and more businesses are pushing their products on their websites. Communication is the key between the people and the town.

Voting was another issue discussed during the summit. How can the city educate the people about voting and the importance of casting your vote?

Overall I think this summit was very helpful. A lot was discussed and many ideas brainstormed. The official findings of the summit will be published soon and I will share them with you.

My challenge to you is to ask you to get involved in your community.  Ask what you can do to help.  Mentor a young adult or someone you work with.  Ask yourself the tough questions.  How would you facilitate change in our community?