COVER STORY
Talking with DuPage women in business
Earlier this week, we welcomed Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton to the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, where we gathered a group of DuPage women for a roundtable discussion focused on financial issues.
I was so impressed by the group’s diversity and breadth of experience. It was powerful to hear them share their achievements, as well as the obstacles they have overcome.
But there were a few comments that really concerned me. Several women talked about the difficulties they’d faced in unraveling problems or accessing resources. When we asked if they’d been able to get help from their elected representatives, they said they didn’t know that kind of help was available. It hadn’t even crossed their minds to ask.
That was tough to hear, because at our office, we pride ourselves on our constituent service. We’ve received thousands of phone calls and emails since I was elected, and we’ve solved countless problems. It took me aback to realize that there are still so many people out there who don’t know that we’re here to help you navigate these things, and that we may have information about programs that could support your business.
Let me stress – I’m not blaming busy women for not knowing what we can do. If you’re running a business, and maintaining a home, and caring for family members – that’s a whole lot of full-time jobs. It doesn’t leave many spare minutes to scroll through the State of Illinois website.
It’s our job to reach out to you, to let you know we’re here, and to keep you posted when new programs launch or rules change. Even more importantly, it’s our job to establish an ongoing conversation, so that you can share your ideas about how we can make the State of Illinois an even better place for women to succeed.
That’s why this newsletter is so important to me. I’m very proud that my team has created this information channel to let you know what’s going in our district, and to provide opportunities for you to get in touch with us, but we can always do more.
So I look forward to working with Lt. Gov. Stratton and our event co-host, State Sen. Laura Ellman, to expand our outreach to DuPage women in business and to make sure that Illinois women have access to the programs they need to truly thrive.