Events
Signature Programs
STOP Human Trafficking
iMatter Overcoming Obstacles Education Grants
Judie Sedell Memorial Grant
Upcoming Events
Helping women transform their lives and live their dreams!
Soroptimist International of Simi Valley has been economically empowering women with the Live Your Dream Awards since 2015. Every year, more than $2.8 million in education grants are awarded globally to nearly 1,700 women through Soroptimist International.
The Live Your Dream: Education and Training Awards for Women offers three levels of cash awards. Eligible applicants can submit their applications between August 1 - November 15.
Ultimately, a Live Your Dream Award finalist has the potential to receive over $15,000 to help offset tuition costs, purchase books, get transportation or find reliable childcare so she can worry less about how to pay her bills and focus on reaching her dreams.
Women from the U.S. and Canada can start their application below.
Questions? Contact our Live Your Dream Award Chair at lyda@soroptimistsv.org.
Helping girls grow to be confident, successful, happy adults!
Dream It, Be It provides girls the guidance and resources they need to achieve their goals. In the first three years since its inception, Dream It, Be It has reached more than 20,000 girls in 14 countries and territories through Soroptimist Internatinal. Girls come out with more confidence, new tools to overcome obstacles, and achievable goals for their future.
Human trafficking is not something that exists only in far-away lands.
The industry is booming in California, and particularly in Ventura County.
In March, 2017, local authorities received information about a 17-year-old girl who was able to escape her captors in Oxnard and call a hotline. The girl gave hotline workers the cross streets where she was hiding, and waited there to be rescued. She'd been held against her will for three days and repeatedly "forced to commit acts of prostitution," which is a dressed-up way of saying she was sexually violated for three days.
This isn't an isolated incident. Three other human trafficking cases with Ventura County ties were prosecuted recently, including members of a large prostitution ring who trafficked 25 Chinese women throughout Southern California. In one particularly horrifying local case, a mom trafficked her own daughter at a hotel in Camarillo.
According to the Ventura County Coalition Against Human Trafficking:
"Ventura County victims have been male and female, adults and children, documented and undocumented, and a variety of ethnicities.
"At any given time, 60% of the female youth in Ventura County Juvenile Facility are estimated to have been sex trafficked in short or long-term situations (VCBH Juvenile Facility Clinic)."
How can you protect your children and others in our community from the horrors of human trafficking? How can you spot victims, so law enforcement can rescue them and get them the help they need?
Soroptimist International Simi Valley hosts an awareness event annually.
For more information, please contact STOP Human Trafficking Chair, Debbie Samel, at iwillnotbesold@soroptimistsv.org.
Overcoming obstacles
education grants.
Soroptimist International of Simi Valley annually awards college scholarships to assist female graduating seniors who will be pursuing higher education or training.
This education support award is disbursed once and may be used for direct school expenses while they are enrolled in an educational program after graduating from high school. Awardees are notified annually by email or phone in the beginning of May.
Education support grant for female probation clients.
The Judie Sedell Memorial Grant is an annual education award given in perpetuity in honor of Judie Sedell, a retired Ventura County probation officer, and wife of our retired City Manger Mike Sedell, to a female probation client who is pursuing her education to better her life.
You are eligible to apply if you:
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Reside in the City of Simi Valley, and
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Are a woman with primary financial responsibility for yourself and your dependents, and
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Are attending an undergraduate degree program or a vocational skills training program, and
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Have financial need.
The Judie Sedell Memorial Grant will provide a cash grant of up to $2,000.00 to female probation clients who are bettering their lives through additional schooling and skills training.
Apply for the Judie Sedell Memorial Grant by filling out an application provided by your Simi Valley Probation Officer.
Raising funds for Live Your Dream Award & Dream It, Be It.
How does it work?
Players purchase numbered paddles to play. Along with many themed baskets, vendors, some with unique handcrafted items, are invited to participate by donating items to be auctioned. These items include women’s fashion accessories, jewelry, health/beauty products, home accessories and gift certificates to your favorite places to go and things to do.
Players will be asked to bid 2-8 quarters based on the retail value of the item. If you are interested in the item, you will place your bid and then raise up your paddle. A number will be randomly drawn, and if the number matches a raised paddle, it is the lucky winner. If no one’s number is called, then another number is drawn until there is a winner. Confused?? Don’t be… you’ll catch on quick!
And there's more!
We will have yummy lunch choices & drinks (including wine) available for purchase.
Our unique vendors will be set up throughout the room, so we encourage attendees to shop before, at intermission and after the game for items they didn’t win or just must have!
Bring your friends for a great afternoon of playing an exciting game of chance, shopping, food and drink - while raising funds to benefit local women and girls. It doesn't get any better!
LIGHTS. CAMERA. CHANGE.
FILMS BY AND ABOUT WOMEN
LUNAFEST® is not just a traveling film festival, it’s a force for change.
For almost 20 years, LUNA has been championing and supporting women. LUNAFEST was created to provide a platform for women to share their untold stories with the world. These important films bring fresh perspectives, ideas that rock our future.
LUNAFEST also makes an impact at the local level, helping to raise funds for women’s causes while providing a global stage for female filmmakers. Soroptimist Simi Valley is a proud host of this annual event.
Someday audiences will demand new voices, different storytellers. That time is now. Because these stories can’t wait for someday.
Someday is now.