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Here at For:20 Minutes, and PayRio, we are ALL about women empowering women. To me, the feeling of being able to lift other women up, honor them, and make them feel great about themselves, is beyond compare. So when I heard about the Women’s Canna Awards, my ears instantly perked up. 

“An awards show focused solely on WOMEN in Cannabis?!??! TELL ME MORE!”

I did a little research, and The first Women’s Canna Awards sounded simply amazing. It took place in Sacramento at the 2022 California State Fair, which boasts attendance of ~50,000 people per day. That gave the first awards show that year the opportunity to reach thousands of people who wouldn’t necessarily normally attend a Cannabis-related awards ceremony. Especially one focused on women! 

The Awards show is coming back in the spring of 2024, and I am beyond proud to say that Aubrey and I are serving on the Event Committee! She and I are going to be working extra hard to make sure that the event is one that these incredible women will never forget.

The Highest Prize

The Women’s Canna Awards Founder, Manndie Tingler, is blazing a new trail with the 1st place prize this year. Obviously, winning any award in this space is a great boost for your business. It gets your name and product in front of potential customers in a super positive way. But Manndie and her team are taking that a step further…

This years 1st place prize winners will get guaranteed 1:1 meetings with Buyers from over 40 Dispensaries across the state of California. This is HUGE! Buyers are basically the gatekeepers to getting your product on the shelf. Manndie and her team have been busting their butts, meeting with dispensaries, and getting agreements in place. A couple of these Dispensaries have even guaranteed shelf space to the winners as well!!

It can be incredibly hard to get your product into Dispensaries. There are so many brands out there competing with one another for shelf space. And without a big sales team, some brands really never get a good chance. That’s why this is such a key element to the Women’s Canna Awards! How do we raise women up in the Cannabis space?? By giving their products a fighting chance in the Dispensaries!

Saving Sophie

Another thing that was of the utmost importance to Manndie and the WCA Team when conceptualizing this event: Helping Women who are making waves in the world, using Cannabis. Women who are making a real difference. Women who have started foundations like this years Women’s Canna Awards Benefactor: Saving Sophie. 

Saving Sophie was founded by an astounding Woman named Tracy Ryan, and her Husband Josh. Tracy is the proud Mama of an equally astounding little girl named Sophie. Sophie was diagnosed with a low-grade brain tumor when she was only 8 months old. While this tumor had a 90% survival rate, it also unfortunately had an 85% recurrence rate. Which meant no matter how many rounds of chemo Sophie went through, and how many times she beat this horrible monster that is Childhood Cancer, she was very likely to grow more tumors. And this is exactly what was happening.

Tracy and her husband Josh were introduced to the idea of using Cannabis with their daughters treatments by none other than the fabulous Ricki Lake. Ricki was working on a documentary called “Weed the People” with her partner on the film, Abby Epstein. This introduction would eventually lead to a whole new world of possibilities for Sophie… And sent Tracy down a path I’m sure she never saw coming. 

Her family would soon launch their own Cannabis tincture company called CannaKids, and the Saving Sophie Foundation. Saving Sophie is a 501c3 that helps support research into alternative medicines, and also helps financially support families who are struggling during their own cancer battles.

To read Sophie’s whole story, and all of the astonishing work that Tracy, Josh, and their partner, Dr. Anahid Jewett are doing, visit their website. It is truly inspiring. If you’ve read my blogs in the past, you may already know this, but I am a Cancer Mama. My son, Wyatt, was diagnosed with Leukemia at age 3. I also lost my eldest sister to complications with her own Leukemia battle when she was only 10 years old. Reading about Tracy and Sophie, and watching Tracy’s interviews had me in tears multiple times. The work they are doing is truly saving the lives of children fighting Cancer. It deserves all the recognition and support we can give them!

Submit Your Products, Ladies!

Are you a Woman who owns or leads a Cannabis brand in California? Then let us empower you! Submit your products and enter to win the Women’s Canna Awards! There are multiple categories you can compete in, including sungrown flower, indoor flower, pre-rolls, edibles, and more! There are also a few Special Recognition awards that will be given out as well, to people who are helping the Cannabis community thrive in other ways. 

To enter the Women’s Canna Awards competition, visit their website, fill out the form you find there, and someone from our team will be in touch with you. Interested in being a sponsor? Use this link to reach someone on the sponsorship team! There are already a few amazing companies on board, including one very proud sponsor, PayRio! Come join the team!

The awards show itself will be taking place in the Spring of 2024. Make sure you go follow them on instagram to see the latest updates on dates, locations, celebrity judges, and more! Trust me, this is going to be one of the BEST Cannabis events of 2024. Empowering Women in Cannabis, helping fund critical Cancer research, and bringing the Cannabis community together in a very special way. You are not going to want to miss it!