In early April, seven women from Viña Del Mar came to Sausalito for seven days as part of our continuing mentoring and leadership workshop series.  2017 was the fifth installment of this series, and our theme this year was “The Path to Growth.”

All of the women are members of a business networking organization based in Viña Del Mar and Valparaiso, Chile. They are entrepreneurs, representing a variety of businesses, including graphic design, furniture design and production, clothing design and sales, home and interior design. They work out of their homes, out of retail spaces or from studios. As women-owned business, they face similar challenges as we do here, and they were all eager to learn from our experiences.

Co-chairs of the Viña Del Mar Operations Council are Monica Finnegan and Karen Aiken. The two of them are largely responsible for putting the actual learning program together. Other awesome and amazing council members, who continually rose above and beyond the call, include: Lynnie Spiller, Cathy Stierhoff, Katya Wittenstein, Lynn Churchill, Lizzie Jeremi and Brenda DeBruyn.

The Chilean women stayed with host families in Sausalito for a week of intense learning through workshops, and lectures. They toured women-owned businesses, cooperative businesses and some dedicated to organic and sustainable products. They were able to strategize with successful local entrepreneurs to find new ways to help their businesses grow and thrive back in Chile. Some of the local businesses who met with the group were Laurel Skin Care, Jill Giordano of GrDano, Katya Wittenstein of Katya Glass, Lorna Newlin of Sausalito Pottery, Christopher Holbrook of Studio 333, Rebecca Bruce of Rebecca Bruce Designs, Rowena Finegan of Pine Street Interiors.

The women each spoke a little English, but not enough to be able to understand everything. So, as an added challenge, all of the discussions and lectures had to be translated back and forth between English and Spanish. We have been so very lucky to have Lizzie Jeremi, a native Chilean now living in San Francisco, continue to help us as a translator. And this year, locals Brenda DeBruyn and Patricia Gatti also translated for us.

As a special treat this year, the Chilean women took over the kitchen of the Edgewater Room in City Hall on a Saturday and prepared a lunch of tasty treats that are typically Chilean. They worked all morning to prepare empanadas, completos, sopaipillas and salsa, and many more dishes. And no Chilean dinner would be complete without the national drink, pisco sours. In Chile, the afternoon meal is typically the largest, and this meal did not disappoint. The guests were more than satisfied and appreciative of the women’s hard work.

Also at the luncheon, the Chilean women displayed many of the products that they and some others in their organization had made. It gave all of us a chance to see the quality of their work and of course, to shop!

Local hosts this year were Monica Finnegan and Mike Kelly, Cathy Stierhoff and Frank Lawler, Brenda and Renee DeBruyn, Maria Paterno and Holger Mishal, Mardi Burnham Brayton and Rich Brayton, EV Gilbreath and Stanford Hughes, and Susan Roe and Tom Clark. Each of these families welcomed their guests into their homes and participated in travel logistics, various events and dinners, all the while getting to know their guest and showing them life in their Sister City of Sausalito.

We said goodbye to the women on a Sunday morning at Viña Del Mar Park, with lots of photos, hugs and a few tears. We will stay in touch with these women and others in the networking group in Chile and continue to help them on their “Path to Growth.”

Welcome to the women from Chile as they arrived at the Ferry landing.

Preparing lunch in the Edgwater Kitchen

Farewel to the women at Viña Del Mar Plaza