RALEIGH, N.C. – October can be a great month for the Ladies who Lunch. The food might not be particularly filling, but the stories of people helped by the women sitting around the tables provide much more substantial satisfaction. That was certainly Cokie’s experience at a lunch last week with our daughter in Washington, and one this week with our daughter-in-law in Raleigh as local women’s giving circles – great groups of women who band together to better their communities – honored their awardees.

In the nation’s capital, the well-established Washington Area Women’s Foundation gathered close to 1,200 boisterous women of every race and ethnicity in a downtown hotel ballroom where they were greeted by a local TV anchor, saluted by someone from the White House, entertained by a professionally produced video and inspired by women helped by their largesse. In North Carolina, the fledgling Women’s Network assembled a couple of hundred women in a suburban hotel ballroom for a somewhat more subdued, but even more inspiring affair.