ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — An environmental activist who helped drive one of the largest medical settlement lawsuits in U.S. history, spoke to women in the Green Bay area about making their voices heard.
Erin Brockovich was the keynote speaker for the Women’s Fund of Greater Green Bay’s 18th annual Power of the Purse luncheon Thursday at the Resch Expo.
The annual event is the Women’s Fund’s largest fundraiser of the year. It helps raise money to give out grants to organizations that build up women and girls in Brown, Oconto and Kewaunee counties.
Brockovich says the energy of the event is both inspiring and empowering.
“I think it’s fabulous and again, as I said earlier, they all come together for each other, for others for a good cause to help uplift others and I think that’s so important and it’s very powerful and you really need to be involved and experience this because it’s a game changer, you just walk away feeling good,” she said.
In 1993, Brockovich played a key role in building a case against PG&E after finding widespread unexplained illness in the town of Hinkley, California. With the help of attorney Ed Masry, the case was settled in 1996 for $333 million.
In 2000, Julia Roberts starred as Brockovich in the Oscar-winning movie, Erin Brockovich; a film that made her a household name.
At the time she began researching PG&E, Brockovich was an unemployed, single-mother without a law degree.
She says women’s events like this encourage women to listen to their inner voice and stay persistent.
“Erin Brockovich was about the environment but there is a lot of sub-text in that film. A lot of gender role issues and very early on for me as a woman who may not have possessed everything that everyone thought I should, to do what I did,” she said. “I have learned more about myself working in these communities with these other women across the globe, that we share something in common and that is a voice that can often times, because of noise, tell us, you can’t, you’re not the right person, you shouldn’t, you’re not wearing the right clothes, you don’t have the right education and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Since the inception of the Women’s Fund, more than $3.3 million has been raised for its endowment, which has distributed more than $1.56 million in grants to over 150 local nonprofit initiatives and programs in the community.
