Women organize to 'give back'

Women organize to 'give back': "Women organize to 'give back'

By TUX TURKEL, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright � 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend
Women organize to 'give back'


By TUX TURKEL, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
E-mail this story to a friend

Ann Marie Almeida Susan Lakari and Jennifer Rockwell own and operate Material Objects at 500 Congress St. in Portland. Lakari has been part of an effort to raise money to help other women entrepreneurs. For Lakari and Rockwell, giving back goes beyond money. They also have trained a high school dropout and given her a job in their store.

Portland's Longfellow Square wasn't a great place to do business in 1979, when Susan Lakari and a business partner started a consignment shop in a rented storefront. Today, though, Material Objects is a profitable clothing store that owns its building on Congress Street.

So when Lakari was attending a Maine Women's Fund annual fund-raising event two years ago, and heard a challenge for successful women to help improve the lives of women and girls, she answered the appeal. Lakari and three other businesswomen helped organize a campaign that has since raised $50,000.