Sign In
Upcoming Event
Free Newsletter
Women’s Business Council names 2022 Athena Awards honorees
Stacy Wescoe//October 26, 2022//
The Women’s Business Council of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce has named this year’s winners of the Athena Leadership Award as well as the Athena Young Professional and the Organizational Athena Award.
The awards were given out to Dorata Gasienica-Kozak, Meg Dowd and SELF! LV Women’s Reentry.
Gasienica-Kozak is partner and chair of the Adoption and Assisted Reproductive Technology Law Practice Group King Spry Herman Freund & Faul, LLC
She has built her legal practice in family, adoption, estate, and assisted reproductive technology law, helping to form, guide, and protect families through some of the biggest moments of their lives.
She frequently speaks and publishes articles on legal topics and volunteers with the Bradbury Sullivan LGBTQ Community Center pro-bono clinic. She is a former Chair of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors and currently serves as Chair of the Board of the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley.
Dowd is corporate affairs manager for Just Born Quality Confections in Bethlehem.
According to the council, she has dedicated her career to improving the community and truly believes it is her calling to leave the community better than the way she found it.
She does so by supporting the Lehigh Valley with grants, donations and her volunteer efforts.
SELF! LV Women’s Reentry is a 501 c3 nonprofit founded in 2018 to help women reentering into society. The SELF! mission is based on the lived experience of Founder and Executive Director, Brenda “Luna” Fernandez, who spent 10 years incarcerated at the young age of 23.
Such life lessons inspired her to start SELF! Lehigh Valley. SELF! is a comprehensive program for women coming home from incarceration.
One of its elements is to coach individuals to effectively integrate into society by becoming viable community members.
During the 2020 pandemic, SELF! services were expanded to support the growing need of our community. SELF! not only serves women returning home from incarceration but also domestic violence.
