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 About
the Family Defense Center:
Diane Redleaf founded the Family Defense Center in 2005 and we opened
our doors to families in 2007. Our mission is to “advocate justice
for families in the child welfare system,” which means to help families
who are the victims of false and harassing accusations being investigated
by the Department of Children and Family Services, or who are at risk
of losing their children to the foster care system for reasons of poverty,
being a victim of domestic violence themselves, or for many other reasons
that often have a disproportionate negative impact upon women as primary
caretakers for children. I first heard about WomenOnCall.org from my friend
Pam Strobel who I first got to know in the early 1990’s when she
was one of the lawyer coordinators of Sidley Austin’s work with me
in my then-position as the supervisor of the Legal Assistance Foundation
of Chicago’s Children’s Rights Project. In 2006, I sought Pam’s
advice on how to develop the board of the Family Defense Center. Pam suggested
I sign up to get women volunteers but it wasn’t quite clear to me
how to do so; I would receive alerts about volunteers and their interest
but even if I responded I didn’t receive responses. After attending
the Meet and Greet event that WomenOnCall.org hosted this spring, I decided
to make a bigger “push” to get volunteers to help with specific
needs we had, including needs design/layout of our newsletter, help with
our first special event, and help with organizing volunteers and fundraising.
I posted three different “positions sought” announcements.
We received wonderful responses to these requests for assistance. We
now have six volunteers who have signed up to do work for our agency (after
the success I had with designers and event planners I posted a description
seeking volunteer coordinators) and I am working on engaging them all
in significant projects.
 I
wanted to give special recognition to the two volunteers who have donated
a great deal of time and talent to making our first special event a potentially
very big success: Sheree Moratto, who has become my trusted advisor and
has agreed to assume the major role of event coordinator and Jeanine Handley,
our volunteer graphic designer who has designed our save the date card,
invitation and program book. Without these two women and their enormous
talents, the event—which is a huge undertaking for us—would
have suffered and may well have seriously stumbled. I know the Family
Defense Center---which is struggling to balance its budget in 2009-- could
not have afforded the value of services we have been able to receive from
these talented volunteers. I have received many compliments for the work
these women are doing and they have become vital contributors to our organization.
The work the volunteers have done on our event is very important to us,
because the event offers an opportunity for many women in Chicago to get
to know not only the Family Defense Center but to also learn something
about the important issues of civil rights for families. Our honoree,
Northwestern Law Prof. Dorothy Roberts, is the nation’s leading expert
on race discrimination in the foster care system and she will be speaking
on “Why Child Welfare is a Civil Rights Issue.” Our Mistress
of Ceremonies is Laura Washington and our two co-chairs include the well-known
former juvenile court judge Patricia Brown-Holmes and leading reproductive
geneticist Dr. Eugene Pergament. Ticket information is available at our
web site at www.familydefensecenter.net and the invitation that Jeanine
Handley designed (her own account of her volunteer interests follows)
is attached. All WomenOnCall.org members are welcome and we can even use
more volunteers on the day of the event!
 About
Sheree Moratto:
Last spring, I decided to give back to my community by volunteering
for a non profit organization. I had held a high level executive position
with a private school for many years and had been responsible for many
areas of its operations, including fundraising, board development, strategic
planning and events I didn’t know where to begin finding the right
connection, so when I heard about the WomenOnCall.org website, I registered
and started researching organizations in need of help. When I read about
the Family Defense Center, I was deeply inspired by their mission to protect
children by defending families. I offered to help with their first benefit
event and was invited to join the planning committee. I have now assumed
a major role as a key coordinator of the event and over the past five
months or so I’ve gotten to know a number of the board members, staff,
and other benefit committee members. I am thrilled that I’ve had
the opportunity to work with Executive Director Diane Redleaf, her staff,
the Family Defense Center Board of Directors and many other volunteers.
I hope that my volunteer work will help the Family Defense Center thrive.
I will continue to support this wonderful organization for many years
to come.
 About
Jeanine Handley:
I have had a passion for design and creativity all of my life. I have
extensive expertise in developing corporate communication materials for
multi-sized companies across all industries and have the ability to meet
deadlines and work with a tight budget. I like working with groups on
projects in the areas of creative direction, art direction, design, photography
and photo manipulation, illustration, strategic planning, brainstorming,
conception, negotiations, and pre-press. While I have done a number of
volunteer design projects for my own church, I joined WomenOnCall.org
in order to give my talents to other not-for-profits that could not afford
to hire designers to reach their target audiences. I have enjoyed working
with Family Defense Center to design a colorful and enticing invitation
that will attract support for its important work helping to preserve families.
I have also been able to help the agency work with printers I have relationships
with and forge new relationships for them that may benefit them for years
to come.
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