Inspiring, empowering women
- Details
- Published on Saturday, 27 October 2012 12:54
- Written by Paul Gordon
Women's Lifestyle Show 2012 showcases changes
With a nationally known powerful woman as featured speaker, a return engagement from a real ghost whisperer and changes in resentation, the Women's Lifestyle Show for 2012 was deemed a success.
The 21st Women's Lifestyle Show was Saturday at the Peoria Civic Center and Erin Brockovich set the tone in delivering the message that people who believe in themselves can overcome any problems they face.
The United States has enough environmental problems and issues that one would think it would have been one of the key issues in the current presidential campaign, said Erin Brockovich.
Instead, the famed activist said Saturday, neither candidate has uttered a word about the environment or what needs to be done to preserve it and to help those victimized industrial carelessness.
"I've been disappointed in the whole campaign, really; with more than just the environmental issue. I haven't heard anything on the environment," said Brockovich, in Peoria on Saturday to speak at the Women's Lifestyle Show at the Civic Center.
In a brief interview before she spoke to a large crowd at the Lifestyle Show, Brockovich said she will likely vote for President Obama, as she did in 2008, because she's not been convinced to "changes horses midstream" by anything Republican challenger Mitt Romney has said or done.
In the meantime, Brockovich said, problems with the environment are not going away and in fact, may be worsening if the amount of cases she hears about is any indication. She talked about a registry she created to track the cases and noted they cover most of the country.
"We are hearing about it more and more all the time," she said. "We are not asking industry to go away, but we don't want them to poison us, either."
Brockovich gained famed because of a movie 12 years ago titled "Erin Brockovich." The tall, statuesque legal researcher was portrayed in the film by Julia Roberts, who won an Oscar for her performance.
The film was about how Brockovich got started looking out for people who have been harmed by damage to the environment and have no other way to be helped. She went to bat for people in a small California town made ill by water contamination caused by Pacific Gas & Electric and ended up helping gain the largest settlement in U.S. tort injury history of $333 million.
Since then she has been an advocate for people not only harmed by a damaged environment but also by defective products and pharmaceuticals. She is no stranger to Illinois; she currently is working on many cases started in the state. While none were generated out of Peoria, they include cases from Decatur and Rockford involving toxic landfills as well as cases originating from Ottawa, Champaign, Clinton and Sauk Village.
One of her worst cases, she said, stems from the piling of lead in a small Missouri town that have caused people, mostly children, to become ill.
Some of the cases, she said, "make me amazed that I live in the United States and seeing these areas with third-world conditions."
Much blame, Brockovich said, should be pinned on the lack of effective communications betweens various agencies charged with making sure these problems don't occur. Also, empty promises don't help.
"There are 30,000 Superfund sites that haven't been cleaned up. That is disconcerting. I would like to know if the (U.S.) senators in each state even knows how many Superfund sites they have in their state," she said.
Superfund refers to the program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aimed at cleaning up toxic waste sites throughout the country. There are numerous sites in Illinois, according to the EPA website, but few are getting Superfund attention.
Brockovich said she is getting more involved with problems in the pharmaceutical industry because people don't feel they have any place to turn to report problems.
"Sometimes it seems we wait for Superman to come and he isn't coming," she said in explaining that people need first to look out for themselves. "Usually the only standing in our way (of getting something done) is ourselves. If people believe in themselves, they will overcome."
The Women's Lifestyle Show was in its 21st year this year and, now under the sole ownership of Joy Miller, underwent many changes this year. The most noticeable was that the vendors were grouped together according to what they offered and the groups were called pavilions. Each pavilion had its own stage.
Briefs conversations with people at the show about midway through, when the crowd was perhaps at its largest, found that most believed it was better.
"To me, it just seems like there is a lot more room for everything," one woman said. "Looking around it seems there are as many people as in past years but we aren't all bumping into each other trying to get around."
Another said she found it easy to find what she was looking for by looking for the signs marking each pavilion.
One of the show's stars the past two years also complimented the changes. "This is great," said Maureen Hancock, the ghost whisperer who has presented and given readings during the shows.
Miller said she was pleased to hear similar sentiments during the show. "I am absolutely pleased with how it has gone. Attendance has been tremendous," she said. Final attendance figures were not available Saturday.
"It really did seem like people loved the new set-up. We found there is still some tweaking to do, but we learned some things and we will be even more improved next year," she said.
Miller said the changes opened up space by creating corners for the vendors. That enabled more of them, including more interactive booths in several areas, including the health and wellness pavilion. "I've never seen that many people go to those areas before and I think the new set-up helped with that. Plus I do believe more people are becoming conscious of their health and what they need to do to improve it," Miller said.
She said the decision to bring in someone of Brockovich's stature to the show "was meant to really showcase what we're doing here. It was important to bring in an empowering, strong woman to be consistent with our message to women that they can be powerful and an inspiration."
Hancock said one of the things that has impressed her about Peoria in her two years of attending the Women's Lifestyle Show has been its energy and its people. "I love it here," said the Boston native.
"The people are so friendly and so open and compassionate. Peoria to me was so unexpected. It's beautiful here. I've done a lot of trade shows and the people here always make us feel so welcome. And people in Peoria get my humor, which is important to me because of what I do. Peoria is good at weaving this web, the connections between the living and the departed," she said.
Hancock said she hopes to return next year.
Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian. He can be reached at 692-7880 or editor@thepeorian.com
