Misty Copeland headlines Fund for Women & Girls’ 25th anniversary fundraiser

In Fairfield County, the median income for women is $50,000. Yet it takes $71,460 to meet the yearly basic needs of a woman with a child.  

Other statistics are equally sobering. Forty-four percent of single female-headed households with children in Bridgeport, Connecticut”™s largest city, live in poverty. Only 8% of Fairfield County community college students complete their studies. Only 13% of women in the county are in management positions. And yet, less than .10 cents of every philanthropic dollar is invested in women and girls. 

“”¦In difficult situations, the only way out is through,” Mendi Blue Paca, president and CEO of Fairfield County”™s Community Foundation, said at the 25th anniversary luncheon for the foundation”™s Fund for Women & Girls, held at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich on Thursday, April 27. Over 31 years, the Norwalk-based foundation has addressed inequities in social justice, health, safety, education and the workplace, awarding more than $390 million in grants to nonprofits in Fairfield County and its environs. The Fund for Women & Girls ”“ which seeks to advance health and education, create economic opportunities and combat gender violence through several programs ”“ is the largest such fund in New England, said Mary Grace Pagaduan, its director. 

One vehicle the fund uses to achieve its goals is its annual fundraising luncheon, which has featured keynote speakers (including law professor Anita Hill and tennis champion Billie Jean King, both civil rights advocates) who have found a way out by finding a way through. At the fittingly titled “Change in Motion” luncheon, Misty Copeland ”“ the first Black female principal dancer in American Ballet Theatre”™s 84-year history ”“ offered yet another example to the 525 attendees, including a handful of aspiring ballerinas in their pink and blue-tulle outfits.  

Indeed, dance, and its connection to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, was a motif of the luncheon. Copeland is an ambassador for the organization, which helps serve young people, particular those in need, through a variety of programs, and the luncheon began with a performance by WakemanCheer, the cheerleading squad of the Wakeman Boys & Girls Club of Fairfield and Bridgeport. (Two of the group”™s members also asked questions at the end of the Q and A between Copeland and Paca.) 

For the Kansas City, Missouri-born Copeland ”“ one of six children of a single mother, who grew up in chaotic circumstances in San Pedro, California, at times living in a motel ”“ the Boys & Girls Club there “became a second home, a home.” She fell in love with woodshop and played billiards well enough to “kick the butts of grown men.” But she didn”™t find herself until she was introduced to dance. 

“Ballet was an outlet and a sacred and safe space,” she said, with the stage remaining so. But ballet was not without its challenges. Despite prodigious talent, she didn”™t begin studying until age 13, when many of her peers would have already had about seven years of technical training behind them. And while she was sheltered in her first dance school (at the San Pedro City Ballet), Copeland said moving up the ranks of American Ballet Theatre ”“ from its satellite Studio Company in 2000 to the main company”™s corps de ballet in 2001 to soloist in 2007 and principal dancer in 2015 ”“ proved an eye-opener.  

“It was a shock,” she said. “I was the only Black woman in a company of 100 dancers.” She went, she added, from being a prodigy to being told to contain her curves and lighten her skin. 

Still, she excelled in classical and modern roles, drawing more Black and Brown faces to the audiences at the Metropolitan Opera House, ABT”™s home. What helped her through this was knowing that “I stood on the shoulders of those who came before. There were mentors right in front of me, incredible Black women.” 

They have included Raven Wilkinson (1935-2018), who is credited with being the first African American woman to dance with a major classical ballet company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The two struck up a friendship when Copeland discovered that they lived not far from each other on Manhattan”™s Upper West Side. Copeland said hearing Wilkinson describe touring the segregated South ”“ with the KKK boarding the Ballet Russe”™s bus to search her out ”“ helped put her own challenges in perspective. In 2022, Copeland published “The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson,” one of several memoirs and children”™s books she has authored or co-authored. 

Dressed in a black pantsuit and a white shirt, her hair pulled back in the messy style of the classic ballerina bun, Copeland beamed as she talked about becoming a mentor herself through the Misty Copeland Foundation ”“ helping ballet dancers of color “to feel seen and heard” and offering free after-school ballet classes with contemporary live music — safe spaces for future Mistys. Whatever the difficulties of ballet, Copeland said, it is no “Black Swan,” the 2010 psychological horror film that revolves around a production of “Swan Lake.”  

The foundation is not the only new production in Copeland”™s life:  Last year she and her husband, lawyer Olu Evans, welcomed a son.  

“Being a ballerina has set me up for being a mother,” she said. She has learned it”™s OK to embrace herself, to ask for help, to say “ ”˜no,”™ because I now have this other little being in my life.” 

In her remarks, Copeland paid tribute to two other women who spoke at the luncheon and whose lives have been transformed by their careers. Emily Tow, president of The Tow Foundation and recipient of The Fund for Women & Girls”™ Anne S. Leonhardt Award, said that when she started with The Tow Foundation, she had no qualifications other than being a family member. As the foundation”™s president since 1995, she has helmed an organization that has targeted $20 million annually to youth justice, community wellness, medicine, journalism and the transformative power of the arts. 

Perhaps no one who spoke, however, had come further than Wanda Rivera, a community health worker with the fund”™s emme coalition, which supports women”™s wellness, job prospects and self-determination in Bridgeport in a research-driven program delivered by Optimus Health Care, channeling $1.14 million in grants to 38 organizations last year. Rivera was once also an emme client.  

In a voice punctuated by emotion that built in power, Rivera described the abuse and emotional blackmailing she endured as a child at the hands of her stepfather, which led to domestic violence at the hands of her husband before she escaped with her children. Her proudest moment, she said, was receiving her college degree in her 50s, with her son, an alumnus of the school, cheering her on.  

As Rivera spoke, the clicking and clattering of silverware and plates quieted until there was no other sound but her voice ”“ and then the audience”™s standing ovation for a woman who personified the “grace, strength and resilience” she discussed. 

 

For more, visit fccfoundation.org.