by KYW's Michelle Durham

Women's Way is hosting their 6th annual Women in Influence conference on Saturday at Temple University's Mitten Hall, and this year's focus is taking a stand for a violence free community.

Executive director of Women's Way, Melissa Weiler-Gerber, says the idea for this year's theme came from those who benefit from Women's Way funding for their programs:

"This year, no matter what issue we talked about, it all came back to safety and violence. It seemed almost all of our providers felt that the women, girls, and families they were working with were impacted by the general culture of violence."

And unfortunately, the impact of violence went far beyond domestic violence and sexual assault, which are still big problems:

"The more general community based violence that just makes it unsafe for families to live in certain neighborhoods, and make parents scared about sending their kids to school and the long term emotional toll that takes."

The conference runs from 8:30am to 2pm and it's free. Breakfast and lunch are provided as well as a free resource book that you can take away about programs in operation to combat violence...as well as suggestions on how you can advocate for change.

For more info, visit http://www.womensway.org/events.asp