STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

A’Shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, will speak at a Blue Girls Gather! event from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday,  July 25, at the Sawtooth Botanical Garden south of Ketchum.

And, yes, men are invited, as well.

Emerge is a Washington, D.C.-based group that provides a roadmap for those wishing to make a difference in their communities by serving on city councils, school boards and other groups. It has trained more than 5,000 women on how to run for office, and more than a thousand of those serve in elected office today.

The organization hosts national and regional trainings, oversees locally-based training programs and partners with groups who empower the community with a focus on sisterhood and the knowledge that women are strongest when they work together.

Gholar has been a grassroots organizer, activist and political strategist. Prior to joining Emerge, she was national deputy director of Community Engagement and director of African-American Engagement for the Democratic National Committee. She also served as a political appointee in the Obama administration, at the U.S. Department of Labor and as the director of Public Engagement for the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee in Charlotte. N.C.

She is founder of “The Brown Girls Guide to Politics,” called one of the top political podcasts by Time magazine, Teen Vogue and Vanity Fair. To learn more, visit https://emergeamerica.org/

 Those wishing to attend should RSVP at luke.gina@yahoo.com.