Soroptimist International of Bellevue Metropolitan recently recognized Monica Fields of Kirkland and Kara Chambers of Redmond with the Women’s Opportunity Award and Violet Richardson Award, respectively, at their annual awards dinner held at The Big Fish Grill.

Fields was honored as the 2013 Women’s Opportunity Award recipient. She is completing her AA degree at Highline Community College this June and plans to continue her education at Central Washington University, completing a bachelor’s degree in Behavior Science. Her dream is to open a non-profit organization to serve at-risk youth.

Chambers, 17, a senior at Redmond High School, was honored as the 2013 Violet Richardson Award recipient. This award is given to young women, ages 14-17, in recognition of their volunteer service. A matching award is given to the organization for which they volunteer.

Chambers was inspired at the age of 12 by her brother, who introduced her to an international organization, Invisible Children (IC). IC is a grassroots group of young people committed to bringing attention to the neglected crisis occurring in central Africa and the atrocities being perpetrated on the people and children by an organization called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRC).

In the 9th grade, after a few years of small-scale voluntary efforts to aid the IC, she founded a group called the “Current Events Club” focused on raising awareness and support for organizations similar to IC.

When she entered Redmond High School, Chambers joined “Schools 4 Schools”, where she now serves as president, whose weekly meetings focus on education and fundraising for central African programs, most notably their sister school Anaka Secondary School in Uganda.

The Women’s Opportunity Awards program was established to assist women with primary financial responsibility for their families to obtain the skills training and education necessary to improve their employment status and standard of living for themselves and their family.

Each year, $1.5 million in club, region and federation funds are awarded to more than 1,000 women around the world. The program is unique because it allows recipients, many of whom have overcome enormous obstacles including poverty, domestic and sexual violence, and drug and alcohol abuse, to use the awards to offset any costs associated with their efforts to attain higher education or skills training, such as tuition, books, childcare and transportation.

Soroptimist International of Bellevue Metropolitan covers the Issaquah, Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland areas and is part of Soroptimist International of the Americas, which was founded in 1921.

With 100,000 members in over 120 countries and territories, our focus is to improve the lives of women and girls in our local communities and around the world. For more information about Soroptimist International or how you can join, contact Sherry Schuler at 425-614-2749.