PEO International founds new chapter in Norman; aims to promote educational opportunities for women | News

The Philanthropic Educational Organization International, an organization with a mission of helping women achieve their educational aspirations, founded a new chapter in Norman after 13 years on Nov. 14, 2021. 

Seven students from the Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, founded the organization on Jan. 21, 1869 in the hopes of providing grants, scholarships, loans and awards to support women in “whatever endeavor they choose,” according to the PEO International website.

Trish Bloemker Sowers, the president of the organization’s HB Chapter in Norman, said she has been a member of the organization’s chapters in different states across the U.S. for 20 years. She followed in the steps of her mother and several friends who invited her to join.

“It has always been my go-to organization in terms of connecting with women when I move into a new community, not only for friendships, but for referrals and recommendations, (to getting) to know the new community and how to become an active and engaged member,” Bloemker Sowers said. 

Bloemker Sowers said she had trouble attending the meetings of the organization’s five chapters previously founded in Norman, but she eventually found a core group of women interested in becoming members of the organization. After talking to the state organizer, they were approved to start the new chapter.  

“(PEO International) has been a wonderful opportunity for me to develop, truly, a network of sisters, but also to provide leadership development (and) community involvement,” Bloemker Sowers said. “(It has been) an opportunity to engage with women that I might never have had the opportunity to meet had it not been for my membership in PEO (and its) outreach to women in the community and in educational institutions.” 

Carol Bohley, the recording secretary of the new chapter, said she believes a lack of “excellent childcare” and gender-based pay gaps challenge women’s education in this generation. OU is an example, as OU political science professor Alisa Fryar compiled data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System in which the university’s wage gap ranked 12th largest of the 94 universities. 

Bohley joined the new chapter after living 14 years on the Gulf Coast of Texas for 14 years. She said the 20 women in the chapter are committed to fundraising money for educational scholarships while becoming each other’s anchors in a new community. 

“We reach out to each other, we care for each other and, in so doing, we generate money towards the scholarships that further education for women,” Bohley said. “Only six of us had been (members of) PEO before. Everyone else was new to the sorority, but they’re interested in helping other women.”

Since many of the new chapter members work at OU, Bloemker Sowers said they want to make OU female students aware of the available scholarships’ opportunities. 

“We are in a situation where we may be aware of students who are potential candidates for scholarship support or who could become potential members, (yet) our focus is not strictly to OU,” Bloemker Sowers said. “We would be happy to have conversations with women who are interested in the different opportunities, and (we have) avenues to help (them) depending on what their needs might be.” 

As the organization has state offices and chapters overseas, Bohley said there are scholarship opportunities for women from other countries, such as The International Peace Scholarship Fund, through which students can be awarded a maximum of $12,500, according to their individual needs.

Bohley said the scholarship awarded $1.8 million to 163 recipients from 63 different countries during the 2021 academic year. 

“It’s not just women here, it’s women everywhere,” Bohley said. 

Although women faced many challenges in education at the inception of the organization, Bloemker Sowers said it is the members’ passion and ability for lifting up women that has helped the organization to stay around for 153 years internationally.

“Women attending (the organization’s) college in the vein of Missouri — Cottey College — are receiving a lot of scholarship support and are exposed to international opportunities, (such as) studying abroad. Most women never thought that they would have an opportunity to study abroad as a student in the 50s, 60s or maybe even in the 70s,” Bloemker Sowers said.

Bohley said she is grateful that the role of women in history is changing, as the organization met in secrecy during the 1940s and ‘50s. 

“It just wasn’t talked about,” Bohley said. “We totally weren’t supposed to wear our pins in public, we were supposed to be just us, but the time has passed for that. In those days, there were supposed to be (women’s) little cooking leagues and their card leagues, (just them) and (their) friends, but that’s not the best way to reach out to help others.”

Bloemker Sowers said the new chapter is in the process of electing its officials in March to later organize projects for this year. Members will also attend the PEO International State Convention, which is traditionally held in May at the Embassy Suites in Norman. 

To become a member of the organization and apply for the grants, scholarships, loans and awards, women in Norman can fill out its online application.

Norman residents who are interested in helping the new chapter can participate with their time and talents in the organization’s fundraising events or make a gift to the organization’s philanthropies, which include the PEO International Foundation and the Oklahoma PEO Educational Foundation.

“We’ve continued to watch education grow and evolve for women to (having) so much more exposure and ability to break glass ceilings than they ever had before,” Bloemker Sowers said. “It’s more important than ever before that we, as women who believe in education, continue to support our sisters.”

Bohley said she is convinced the organization has changed the lives of women across the world. She cited an example in her Texas chapter, as members helped a domestic violence survivor obtain a four-year college degree to support her children. 

“She got part of our educational loan fund, and that’s how we change lives,” Bohley said. “We have women who have gone back, others who have never been to college, scholarships to Cottey College for a liberal arts degree and money out there to help them.”