AMELIA “AMY” BLADES STEWARD

2024 Women & Girls Fund Award Recipient

Amelia “Amy” Blades Steward was born in Easton, Maryland. Her love of writing started as a young girl during summer visits at her grandmother’s house where she was encouraged to write short stories. Later in middle school, she attended the Wye Institute Summer Camp for Gifted and Talented in creative writing which provided further encouragement for her writing. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in English/ Communications at Hood College, she gained writing and editing skills while working at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, DC, the Maryland Historical Trust in Annapolis, and Shore Health System in Easton. She is a graduate of the Shore Leadership Program – Class of 2005 – an experience that inspired her to open her company, Steward Writing and Communications, in 2006. She has helped elevate the visibility of numerous local nonprofits through her business’s marketing, public relations, and fundraising services. Her awards have included an Alfred Knight Award for Media Placement – Feature Story by the Maryland Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development and a Telly Award for Producer of an MGW School of Nursing Video.

As a regional storyteller, Amy has focused her writing on telling the stories of those who often are overlooked in our community – specializing in health care, human services, the arts, and the environment. Amy believes everyone has a story to tell. She is a regular contributor of non-fiction articles to Shore Magazine, Attraction Magazine, Tidewater Times, Coastal Style, What’s Up Eastern Shore, the Talbot Spy, and numerous regional and local publications. A fan of memoirs, she published her first book in 2014 with Charles H. Thornton entitled Charles H. Thornton: A Life of Elegant Solutions. She is a regular reader for WHCP Radio’s Mid-Shore Reading Service which is near and dear to her heart. As a volunteer reader for the service for the past six years, she reads monthly regional magazines to sight-impaired and print-disabled residents across the Shore.

Amy believes in community service and has been a local participant in the faith community. She has served on numerous boards both locally and statewide, including serving as president of the boards of Channel Marker, Character Counts, Talbot Partnership, and Talbot Community Connections. She currently serves as President of Talbot Arts and serves on the boards of Talbot Community Connections and WHCP Community Radio Advisory Board. In the past, she also served on the boards of Maryland Life Magazine, Shore Leadership Alumni Association, Easton High School Band Boosters, Memorial Hospital Child Care Center, Historic Easton, the Wye Mill Committee of Preservation Maryland, and the Bay to Ocean Writer’s Conference Committee. She is also active at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church where she served as a youth leader and led bible studies and has served on the Easton Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast Committee. She volunteered with the Waterfowl Festival for 30 years and served over 10 years as a middle school character coach.

Karen M. Kaludis, Women & Girls Fund Board President and local attorney, states, “Through her riveting and compassionate writing Amy has successfully shed light on the pressing needs of women and girls and their families in our community. Amy not only talks the talk, she walks the walk, through her decades-long and tireless volunteerism on the Mid-Shore serving all ages, cultures, and needs. In her many leadership roles, Amy has left her mark and has through her dedication made a necessary, dramatic, and long-lasting difference in the quality of life of Mid-Shore women and girls and their families.”

Amy resides in Easton with her husband of 25 years, Eric Steward, who is a Safety and Training Manager for H & M Bay, Inc., a transportation broker, and their Corgi, Minnie. She has two grown sons who are working in the arts field. Her son Andrew Dorbin is married to Megan Dorbin, an occupational therapy assistant, and has a daughter Andie Marie. He works as a videographer for PRS Guitars in Stevensville, MD. Her son, Conner Dorbin, is the registrar at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Amy credits many women over the years for guiding and mentoring her in her professional and personal life. She says that we stand on the shoulders of the women who went before us. She has mentored numerous women in the writing field and community service over the years, helping them to see in themselves what she sees in them.

Amy is a true visionary and philanthropist. She exemplifies the spirit of the Women & Girls Fund Award in how she conducts both her personal and professional lives – unselfishly sharing her time and talent for the greater good.

It is both an honor and a pleasure for the Women & Girls Fund to present the 2024 Women & Girls Fund Award to Amelia B. Steward.