As part of ABWA Wine Country Chapter’s mission to create opportunites through education, we have developed our Inspiring Women Scholarship Program. Our year’s biggest event is the Inspiring Women Benefit, a wine and food tasting fundraiser with a wine raffle and silent auction. The raffle Grand Prize is a 100-bottle premium wine library and 35-bottle wine chiller, and all proceeds from the raffle and auction go to our Scholarship Fund. In 2007 alone, we awarded $18,000 in scholarships to women in need attending Sonoma State and Santa Rosa JC.

The 2009 Inspiring Women Benefit, Moxie & Marvels, featuring winepouring + tasting menu, spectacular entertainment, and fabulous live & silent auctions, took place Tuesday, April 21st, at Healdsburg Bar & Grill. Participating wineries included Stark Wine, Bella Vineyards & Wine Caves, Verge Wine, Harvest Moon, Emtu Estate Wines and Camellia Cellars. The event raised over $11,000 in scholarships

Contact Jen Stark at (707) 431-8023 for more information.

2008, Kim Dow
2007, Anna Smith
2006, Margi Williams-Weiranga
2005, Carol Feuerstein
2004, Diana Blakeley &
Holly Schatz
2003, Anna Scally
2002, Lucy Lewand

Each year, the Wine Country Chapter emphasizes the outstanding achievements and contributions members make by electing a Chapter Woman of the Year.

2008 Woman of the Year

Kim Dow is the principal at DowHouse, a design studio offering a multitude of creative services for print and web media.

Kim was raised on a rugged ridge overlooking the South Yuba River, where she learned the magic combination of gravity and bicycles. Kim's BMX career took her all over the country and landed her a national top ten ranking. Understanding the short career span of a cyclist, she put her nose to the academic grindstone in a co-op program at the University of San Francisco and the Academy of Art. Before she graduated with honors in 1997, with a major in graphic design and minors in women's studies and multicultural studies, she chaired the University's student diversity group and managed to continue her cycling career into mountain bike racing. After landing her first design job in Sonoma, she settled into life in the local community. When the 9-to-5 got to be a bit confining, she split off on her own and has been freelancing for the last seven years.

A founding member of the Occidental Bohemian Farmers Market, Kim continues to serve as board president and managing director into the market's sixth year. She is a member of the Bohemian Connection and leads the HillJillys Women's Cycling Club. Kim's considerable pro bono work includes ongoing projects for the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and other community organizations. She's been an active ABWA member for the last three years and chaired the Inspiring Women Scholarship Fundraiser for the last two, helping to raise tens of thousands of dollars for a cause that's close to her heart.

Kim is dedicated, tireless, focused, and always willing to laugh. There is always time in her day to get something done for someone else. If we had twice the time as her, we'd probably only get half as much done. It's in the wake of this easy industriousness that we award her with ABWA's Woman of the Year, should we get her to slow down long enough to accept it.