It’s sometimes hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since we launched She In The CLE. It has been an incredible 12 months, and a lot has changed since our very first post. And although we are always looking forward, we wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the last year with some highlights:

We lost a founding partner, and found another: We first started as a foursome: Christina, Shibani, Allison and Amy. As we started to get our hands dirty over the first few months, Allison found that with the commitments of her role as partner at Hello, she was unable to commit to our little project as much as she would like. In early 2016, she stepped away from She, and although we miss her tremendously, we invited our then-intern Gabby to join us a a full time partner this summer. Lucky for us, she said yes!

We’ve had so many incredible contributors this year that we asked four of them to be regular contributors. You may have noticed an increase in posts from these fabulous ladies, but if you haven’t, keep an eye out for more content from Rachel Stallard, Rachel Gehrs, Natalie Borrell, and Brea Schmidt!

We had so many interesting conversations that started online, and sparked something in us offline. Some of our most read posts were Sharon Sobol Jordan’s very first post that went viral, Michelle Walker’s post on the loss of her best friend, and Amy’s tribute to her guardian angel who helped her overcome the overwhelming responsibility of being a full time mom to two kids overnight. These stories and all the others featured in this space made us think, some made us cry, others offered tips to work through issues or even everyday life, some made us laugh. But most of all, they painted a story of the women of Northeast Ohio and how amazing we all are in our unique way.

As we start another year today, we’re looking forward to trying out some new things, and I hope you will join us by trying some new things too. If you’ve been a reader of this blog but thought “oh I could never do that” or “I wish I could do that”, I challenge you to overcome your fear and submit a post. I promise you that you have a story inside of you, and that writing is easier than you think, but you have to start somewhere. Most of all, I promise that we will be there with you every step of the way. We will not let you fall. So please, share your voice with us, and let’s start a conversation.

I will end this post by simply saying thank you. Thank you to my partners Amy, Christina, and Gabby. Thank you to everyone who submitted a piece for She. Thank you to everyone who follows us on social media. Thank you to everyone who visits our site and reads these posts. Thank you to everyone who shares them. Thank you for making our dreams real.