Check Out Carolyn Moor’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolyn Moor. She and the Modern Widows Club team share their story with us below:

Every year, Modern Widows Club nonprofit looks for vibrant communities to hold our Annual Widow Empowerment Event. This year, we chose Scottsdale, AZ, from Sept 23-25 at the DoubleTree Paradise Valley Resort. Registration: https://modernwidowsclub.org/wee-2022-scottsdale. We started this widows conference in 2017 as a way to bring empowering speakers, resources, and community to support widows right where they are in their journey. Today, we hold a virtual conference in the Spring and an in-person live event in the Fall.

Carolyn Moor produced the first event with over 125 widows attending. It has grown since then with both virtual and in-person attendance. We’ve also attracted broader corporate sponsors and exhibitors who support the many areas widows needing solutions in rebuilding their lives after losing a spouse. It’s quite an inspiring weekend, like nothing else. Ladies discover where they are doing well and affirmed, and walk away knowing the areas that may need more attention. Either way, the education, and resources empower her life. She takes that home with her and a community of other wisters (widow + sister).

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Since widows are already underserved, invisible, and forgotten worldwide, starting a new organization and events around empowering them caused us to need to bust many of the widowhood myths and replace them with positive truths about the reality of their experience. From research, surveys and polls, we’ve learned these women’s real experiences and needs straight from their voices. We pride ourselves on being the first to believe her and to respond to her truths. Educating the rest of society has been the greatest challenge. Widowhood is a complex stage of life with many stereotypes to bust. So the road has not been smooth in raising awareness, but thankfully, it fully resonates with the women who get it. The event and finding sponsors was our biggest struggle; finding the companies that care about supporting widows with education and helpful products took years of relationship building. Today, we have recurring sponsors who love what we do and continue to sing our praises, which helps to ensure each year gets better than the last.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
What sets me apart from any other nonprofit Founder and Executive Director is I never meant to launch a 501c3 to help empower widows. An interview on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 made me the face of what a young widow parent could accomplish. After that, many widows began to find me over the years. I started very small in my home by mentoring two widows on my back porch monthly. That grew into the 43 communities in 5 countries today, serving 50K widows. The pandemic has made those numbers even higher. I saw a gap where women were not being served because of my experience becoming a young widowed mom at age 37 with two young children, but as time when on, I kept meeting others as well. Their experience was similar to mine of how hard it was to find helpful, inspiring support as a widow. Everything was focused on grief and only within the first year or two. But I needed long-term support after those programs ended to rebuild my life. I am pioneering a bridge of resilience to strengthen and empower an epic generation of widow mentors, leaders, and advocates today.

I specialize in inspiring widows to support themselves, then turn around and mentor another, maybe become a leader, and always stand strong with other widows as an advocate. That is what I’m known for. I empowered the widow leadership movement and will continue doing so by publishing my first leadership book, “Inspire, Connect Lead: Empowering Your Widow Mentor and Leadership Gifts,” this Fall. I talk about how widowhood is a women’s health and a human rights issue; this is why we need more widow advocates for positive change. Someday, I hope to create a Widow’s Health & Research Institute so no matter what generation a widow faces this life change, she will receive the support relative to that decade of her own life. What I needed in my 30’s is very different than my 50’s, and I suspect in my 70’s as well. We are also known for our Legendary Widow features at Modern Widows Club. We discovered that few widow’s stories were being told for the courage, strength, inspiration, and bravery they truly possess. So, we are launching a Legendary Widows: Stories of Legacy book in 2023 to promote National Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day in March. We hope to ensure that widows’ stories are told in the context of the post-traumatic growth they inspired and experienced after their loss.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Yes, we are truly a global movement for empowering widows from a multitude of cultures. When we opened up virtually to our communities and events, we increased by 166% in in-service programs. We’ve developed better training for our widow leaders, and we’ve been able to train widows wherever they are in the world and guide them to impact the widow communities in their local areas. It has also opened our eyes to how invisible widows are in society. There is an estimated 3M new widows because more men have died from COVID19, yet we are not seeing the advancement of available grants or legislature protecting this demographic specifically. For the first time, U.N. Women made widows a topic of focus at the Commission on the Status of Women after 25 years of advocacy. However, solutions are rarely developed, leaving widowed women the last and least to be addressed. There are currently 300M widows caring for 600M kids in the world today, and advocacy for them is now in crisis. Every June 23, we remember and recognize them on International Widows Day. Hopefully, the U.S. will be the first country to recognize widows with our day of recognition in 2023 (currently in the Senate). Our organization is seeing COVID19 widows join MWC in droves; every community welcomes them, and their needs are great. The important lesson here is to listen to them, hear their voices, and give them the opportunities to be heard locally, nationally, and globally because they have stories, questions, answers, and solutions. They impact our communities ability to flourish one person at a time, one family at a time. Bringing light to their private and public struggles means more communities will flourish, knowing that all are supported well and seen.

Pricing:

• $349 WEE Regular Registration for Widows and Daughters
• $549 WEE VIP Registration for Anyone

Contact Info:

• Website: https://modernwidowsclub.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modernwidowsclub/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modernwidowsclub
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ModernWidows
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAej2VmfOybkD3IcLeBKLEw
• Other: https://modernwidowsclub.org/wee-2022-scottsdale/

Image Credits
Credit: Jenn Fortune Photography