Mission
Women Veterans Empowered & Thriving is a reintegration program for women veterans that utilizes writing and performance to empower participants to thrive in their daily life. We guide women veterans to reconnect with their mind, body, soul, and passion for life. Through creativity, compassion, and camaraderie in a non-judgmental space, we empower each other to ascend to the best version of ourselves.
HISTORY
Women Veterans Empowered & Thriving (WVE&T) was founded in March 2016 by Iraq war veteran, Jenny Pacanowski. In 2019, WVE&T received our 501(c)3 nonprofit organizational status. The officers of WVE&T are inclusive to veterans of multiple generations, combat, and non-combat, pre and post-9-11, as well as a mother of a woman veteran and civilians. We are a 501c3 all-volunteer nonprofit organization. Fully funded by private donations. All of which are entirely used to support Veteran programming.
Our history began when founder, Jenny Pacanowski, recognized women veterans as an underserved population, specifically in the Lehigh Valley, PA. At the time, there was no women veterans support group at the Allentown VA and no local organizations focusing on the specific needs of women veterans. Our first workshops were a meet, and greet, and a free writing workshop at a Bethlehem farm in a small farmhouse. The women veterans showed up, and created time for themselves, no matter the weather or the temperature, they needed to express themselves and connect with women of shared experiences while discussing advocacy and how to ask for what our community needed.
In 2018, we connected with a local arts organization, ArtsQuest, for their Movie and Panel discussion at their Veterans Day event. Our positive connection with ArtsQuest and their belief in our empowerment programming led to them offering to hold our workshops at their Banana Factory Arts Center in Downtown Bethlehem.Finally, we had a temperature-controlled environment that provided a space for empathetic listening, where we could express our truth, reconnect with our inner empowerment through community agreements, and share our knowledge of resources and benefits.
In 2019, we were invited to perform at a community-centered arts event called Festival Unbound produced by Touchstone Theatre in downtown Bethlehem. We presented “Forward March: Future of our Warriors” embodying performance and rituals of storytelling as a part of our reintegration empowerment programming. This performance at Touchstone Theatre created an opportunity and established an ongoing partnership, one where we would be able to continue hosting empowerment performances and sharing the rituals of storytelling. In addition, providing us with the opportunity to expand our programming for all veterans (including men and transgender) and families and caretakers of veterans confirming that the empowerment programming can be applied to all people
In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world WVE&T answered the call for connectedness and continued peer and community support. We launched our Empowerment Workshops virtually in response to the isolation and separation that the COVID pandemic presented. This was critical for suicide prevention, as isolation is a key contributor. This also launched WVE&T as a nationally accessible program with our roots still in the Lehigh Valley. During the pandemic, WVE&T partnered with Poetic Theater Productions of New York City to continue virtual empowerment performances and rituals. WVE&T also partnered with Exit 12 Dance Company and co-founded the Veteran Arts Online Portal providing arts programming such as movement, physical acting, decruit, empowerment workshops, and mediation.