Mission Statement: The Women’s Exchange provides programs

in a supportive environment for all women to share ideas and information – to learn, to grow, to build relationships, and to have fun.

After 18 years as director, the question I am most often asked is “What is the Magic of the Women’s Exchange?”

To describe the Women’s Exchange by its mission statement only would be like describing the paintings of Renoir using only the colors, or the writings of Shakespeare using only the words. In all three cases you would miss the depth of the content, the richness of nuance that comes into play between the various elements, and the wonder that results when a finished product is more than the sum of its parts.

Located in Winnetka, Illinois, an upper middle class suburb north of Chicago, the Women’s Exchange serves as a meeting place for women from several surrounding communities. Its campus consists of four rooms in an old but elegant, ivy covered stone building attached to the Community House in the heart of the centuries old village. It is not a membership organization. No one ‘joins’ the Women’s Exchange. Rather, women become attached to it in some mystical way that is hard to explain to those who have not walked the steps to the second floor and felt the magic enfold them.

The Women’s Exchange is a place to leave your public self behind and experience your true self, warts and all. It is also a place to question who you are and to try on the new woman you’d like to become. Either way, the feeling of safety and acceptance is palpable. It is as if the walls themselves enfold you while you are there…listening, challenging, responding….and then holding your hopes, dreams, and questions safe until you return.

But of course, it isn’t the cinder block walls that are magic and it certainly isn’t the haphazard furniture. Couches and chairs of various styles and colors surround coffee tables from eras gone by. Lamps that once graced the homes of others have found their way into the rooms, often by way of the rummage sale held in the building each year. Well worn area rugs anchor each seating area. A coffee machine in the hall serves as a meeting place between classes.

No, it is the women who bring the magic with them into the space. Their eagerness to hear and learn new ideas, their willingness to share their own feelings, their openness to the opinions of others, and their belief that each woman’s story is hers alone to tell….that is the magic that is the Women’s Exchange. For in hearing the story of others we change our own story in some small way. In sharing our own story we impact the story of those around us. And that is magical.

Judi Geake, director

www.womens-exchange.org