Meet Rosanne Holliday, our host for the April 19th Women GiveReception

Women Give San Diego will be hosting a Reception at the beautiful Del Mar home of Rosanne Holliday on Thursday, April 19^th in the evening, featuring Scripps College President, Lori Bettison-Varga.

I had the chance to chat with our host about her involvement with women and philanthropy. She is a role model for the next generation of young women - both in the workplace and in philanthropy.

Before she retired at the age of 57, Ms. Holliday held roles as a training consultant for Head Start in L.A., founder of a nursery school at Rady Children’s Hospital and professor at Southwestern College teaching child development. Her work has always been driven by her passion “children, mothers, teachers and women’s issues.”

She states: “I have always worked and have seen certain injustices as a woman.” During her time at Southwestern College, she became embroiled in a struggle with the president of the college over whether she could bring Katherine, her second child, and her baby sitter to work so that she could nurse and play with her during breaks. This struggle became national news. Although the College Board of Trustees passed a rule that no employee could have a minor child on campus while they were on duty, it was ultimately determined by the state hearing board that Katherine’s presence on campus had not affected her teaching negatively. Rosanne has truly been an advocate for working mothers.

When she finished her tenure at the college, she “didn’t want to fritter away the rest of my years,” so she got involved in the community by re-engaging with the Planned Parenthood Board. She first became involved with Planned Parenthood in the 1980’s and served as Board President from 1986-1988. At that time, she served on the education committee because it suited her background, but she migrated over to the fundraising committee because the real need was raising funds and it became her niche. She chaired the “Caring For the Future” $16 million capital campaign for Planned Parenthood resulting in fourteen new and renovated medical centers. Her family named the Holliday Family Administration Center in Mission Valley.

Rosanne is one of the Founding Members of Women and she joined because “Linda Katz asked me. And that was that.”

"I have had the pleasure of knowing Rosanne for nearly 30 years. She is everything I strive to be - gracious, caring, generous, straight forward and a great Mom and Grandma! Rosanne has been a wonderful mentor and friend - always willing to share her thoughts and best thinking on most anything. I feel so fortunate to consider Rosanne one of my dearest friends!"

~ Linda Katz, Co-Founder, Women Give San Diego

When I asked why Rosanne wanted to host a Women Give event with Scripps College, Rosanne said: “It’s a way of bringing two of my interests together.” Rosanne serves on the Board of Scripps College and works closely with the College’s President, Ms. Bettison-Varga, who she says is “really a star. Lori represents the College well because she is young, vivacious, down-to-earth and really bright. I just thought – gee – the members of Women Give should know more about Scripps College (and the Claremont Colleges) because they are helping to educate women for the future. These two things really go together.”

Please join Women Give on April 19^th at the home of Rosanne Holliday to hear from Scripps College President, Lori Bettison-Varga. To RSVP for the event and receive directions, please email Eugenia Garcia at eugenia@eugeniagarcia.com.