NWTF WITO Chapter Breaks Attendance Record, Sets Sights on the Future
EDGEFIELD, S.C. — The NWTF New Jersey WITO Chapter celebrated a milestone by hosting its 5th annual banquet. With over 170 attendees, the event broke records, including growing by 45 attendees, having 19 sponsors and achieving Golden Gobbler status for the first time, an achievement NWTF chapters can attain for a net-to-gross ratio of 50% or more in essential funding raised.
Establishing the New Jersey WITO chapter began as a process. In 2019, the state chapter hosted its first deer hunt camp, with 16 women attending. The engaged women hunters were retained as dedicated NWTF volunteers because they wanted to be involved in future events. Some of the first-time hunters from the event have since become mentors themselves, which has led to more successful mentored hunts, as they especially know how it feels to be a new hunter.
That same year, Cristina McGannon-Jones, New Jersey WITO Chapter president, won the prestigious Annie Oakly Award and spoke on a panel with Brenda Valentine, the First Lady of Hunting. She remembers Valentine inspired her to ask more people to be mentors.
“People fear they aren’t qualified yet to be a mentor, so I changed my approach, and now I ask women if they’ll go out as a buddy rather than use the word mentor,” McGannon-Jones said. “You just need to be there for support.”
This approach has led to an amazing turnaround in new hunters becoming mentors who hold officer positions within the New Jersey WITO Chapter.
In 2021, McGannon-Jones and other female mentors started the chapter. They realized they needed to build a community with multiple events a year that would allow for women mentees to stay engaged with the NWTF.
“Our goal with events like this banquet is fun,” said McGannon-Jones. “The one cool thing about our banquet is that we see full families like members’ grandparents, parents and little kids attend. It was just cool to look at a table and see a member’s parent or grandchild.”
McGannon-Jones also added that the event has many young girls in attendance, and next year, the chapter hopes to include more prizes and activities that are specific to their age group.
“We had a chapter member who is an archery hunter who has wanted to get into shooting sports win a shotgun, which was exciting,” McGannon-Jones said. “We also had one of the young girls win a shotgun as well.”
Since this year’s WITO banquet was on International Women’s Day, McGannon-Jones wrote a captivating speech to highlight the success of WITO programs.
“Our chapter hosted around 30 events last year, which is 30 touch points, 30 opportunities to engage with new hunters,” she said in her speech.
“WITO is so important because it provides a community. It's so important to give women an outdoor community and let them choose what they are involved in. That allows them to shine, whether it means they’re a mentor or coordinator for an event, which really makes our chapter stronger.”