Jan Blalock
Janice (Jan) Blalock has been a Commissioner representing the 1st District since October, 2015. Currently serving her 4th term as Chair, Jan has made it her mission to create a more engaged, activist, collaborative Commission, representing our diverse community of women, girls and families while developing deeper partnerships with local nonprofit organizations. While Chair, Jan has been ex officio on all ad hocs.
Highlights of Jan’s personal contributions have been:
- Launching the Voices of Sonoma County Women project where Commissioners met with women from all five districts as well as those incarcerated in the Main Adult Detention Center for live Listening Sessions. From these sessions and a survey distributed throughout the County, the ad hoc learned the top issues and concerns of local women, encouraged their engagement in solving issues and completed a comprehensive report. This project was relaunched as a pandemic edition and has been awarded a grant from the California Women’s Recovery Response Grant Program to create a Report on the Status of Women and Girls in Sonoma County.
- Coordinated the “Women Can Run, Women Can Vote, Women Can Win” event for Women’s Equality Day, August 2016, encouraging women to run for office, registering community members to vote and highlighting local and statewide female elected officials
- Led the ‘One Billion Rising – Break the Chain of violence against women’ event February 2016 which included a march, flash mob, participation and resources from community partners promoting nonviolence and inspirational speakers.
- Collaborated with Verity, our local rape crisis and trauma center, as well as the Santa Rosa Violence Prevention Partnership to present the film “The Mask You Live In” to the community and discuss issues regarding gender based violence.
- Hosted a statewide Association of California Commissions for Women conference and honored some of our first Commissioners who launched Women’s History Week.
- Created a pandemic relevant resource guide for women, girls and families.
- Mentored the Junior Commission for 4 years.
- Member of the Sonoma County Human Trafficking Task Force and lead on the Education and Outreach committee.
Outside of Jan’s role as Commissioner, Jan is mother of two wonderful young women and lives with her supportive husband in Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa. She is a business leader and teacher in Health, Fitness and Wellness, managing all programming and staff for a local Health Club as well as being an Advisory Board Member for the Santa Rosa Junior College. She has been Executive Board Secretary for Redemption House of the Bay Area and is a Crisis Line Counselor for Verity.