Meet Barbara Anne Ferris

Experienced Leadership with a Vision for our Future

My career has taken me to over 100 countries around the world where I have expertise in public policy, economic and community development, civil society building, small business, and governance. When I’m elected to Congress, I will bring more than a quarter of a century of professional experience with a successful track record to the job. More importantly, having worked on Capitol Hill, I know the federal legislative process and the federal budget process, so I can hit the ground running. This is very important for our district because we are in dire straits having lost one third of our federal dollars in the last decade. We can not afford to send someone to Washington with no experience for two years of “on the job training!” Finally, I am strongly committed to working with all of my colleagues in the Ohio congressional delegation to ensure that Ohio gets its fair share of federal programs and federal dollars.

Making a Difference...

Early on in my life, I learned that one person can make a difference!

In my community, I have been volunteering with the Veterans for the past five years and now I am working with an incredible team of dedicated Vets who are working together to host a national veteran’s reunion here in Cleveland in the summer of 2008. We anticipate that more than 50,000 vets from all different era’s will come to Cleveland to celebrate their service, honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and reunite with those they served with. We are hosting the reunion in conjunction with VetAid – a national effort to bring much needed resources to local veteran groups across the country. We anticipate that this will be a huge boost to our economy and bring in millions of dollars for tourism.

I serve as the Chair of the Board of Directors for Ashley’s Hope, a non-profit organization established to provide support for families who have children with life threatening illnesses. Ashley’s Hope was started by Jen Nellich whose daughter Ashley was diagnosed with Wilm’s tumors at the age of 19 months. I serve on the board of Directors for the St. Charles Federal Credit Union and am a member of St. Charles Ladies Guild.

As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I am active in my local group – NORVA (Northern Ohio Returned Volunteer Association) and coordinate a Second Sunday Meal at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lakewood. Sadly, with the poor economic situation in our region, the need to provide a meal to people in the community who are struggling has increased tremendously in the last five years. We welcome anyone who wants to join us on the Second Sunday to serve the meal.

In an effort to help make Cleveland the “Amateur Sports Capitol” of the country, I have been volunteering with the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission for the past four years. This year, I am working with them to help them make the Continental Cup an extraordinary international youth soccer tournament. Reaching out across both oceans to my friends in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, our goal is to have youth soccer teams from all the continents. We hope to make this annual youth soccer tournament the best in the world!

In my work as a non-profit executive for the International Women’s Democracy Center, we sent another IWDC Official Delegation of high school seniors to the United Nations for the annual Department of Public Affairs Conference at UN Headquarters in New York. IWDC’s Official Delegation to the United Nations Conferences for the past four years has included high school seniors from Magnificat High School in Rocky River. The experience for these students who have participated in Model UN, Junior Council of World Affairs and other activities is a once in a lifetime happening and the purpose is to encourage them to consider foreign affairs, diplomacy and international development as career choices.

In addition, I facilitated the Community Advocate Mentor Program with a delegation of recognized Palestinian and Israeli women leaders for a two-week intensive public policy workshop. After initial training in Jerusalem, they traveled to Washington, DC where they shadowed Members of Congress and Lobbyists to learn how we create public policy. Public policy experts, lobbyists and Members of Congress led workshop sessions. During the first week, they had an overview of how the legislative, executive and judicial branches of our government intersect with special interest and the third sector to create public policy. During the second week, they shadowed a lobbyist and a Member of Congress to gain an up front first hand view of how each one actually does their job. The most critical component of this program is that the women work in teams – one Israeli and one Palestinian – and they share hotel rooms for the duration of their time in Washington. By far, these was the most powerful and transforming part of their days because it was the first time that each had spent so much time with someone from the “other side” let alone share a room! At the end of the program, they left Washington as sisters and to this day, they all continue to communicate by email. More importantly, they have all sent a list of names of women they nominated to participate in the program next year.

IWDC works around the world to strengthen women’s global leadership and works in partnership with non-governmental organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. I founded this organization twelve years ago as a result of my work at Peace Corps when I went to the former Soviet Union countries and women in these countries were asking for training to learn how to run for office and how to lobby. The hallmark of IWDC’s success over these twelve years is that we do not take federal dollars to do our work and we do not work with political parties – because most nations out side the United States are multi-party.

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