Through their evergrowing initiatives and powerful voices, the Women's Activist Club (also known as WAC) is one of Mercersburg’s forces to be reckoned with. With their feminist attitudes and spirit, WAC is actively advancing women to a better future in the Mercersbrug community and throughout the world.
At its origin, WAC was in an extremely different form than today’s organization. “We used to have something called Greater Respect Of Women (GROW) several years back. But WAC was created around 5 years ago as a reading and awareness group,” said Allison Stephens, History Department Head and WAC adviser.
WAC is currently planning events to engage and educate the campus community. “WAC is planning on hosting events and fundraisers on campus to support the issues that WAC members are passionate about,” said WAC co-president Maria Akaras. “Additionally, we are going to meet weekly as a club to discuss current events and make plans for how we want to take action in the near and far future.” Active member of the Women’s Activism Club Anne Sehon further explained the nature of WAC discussions: “We discuss deep into topics, not just women related, but women concerned. We like to facilitate discussions and create a safe space for conversations.” Partnered with community engagement council and Stony Batter, WAC members volunteered to sell food at the production of Gaslight last week in order to raise money and awareness for Women In Need in Franklin County.
“In the future, WAC hopes to organize or go to major women's marches, host discussions open to the community on women's issues, and support a mindset of intersectionality across campus” said member Talia Cutler. “We are also open to more ideas from the community, all voices are welcome and we hope by doing that we can create progress towards actionable change.”
“At this time in the nation’s and world’s history, it is important that students see that they can make a difference in the world around them. Voting is critical as is having the confidence to speak up,” Stephens said.