Keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling author Abby Jimenez presenting at the 11th annual Women's Networking Event "Mingle with a Purpose: Heels and All."

NEW ULM – Romance novelist and Food Network regular Abby Jimenez headlined the 11th annual Mingle with a Purpose event Thursday at the Royal Oak Event Center.

Hosted by the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce, the yearly meeting offers women of the community an opportunity to enjoy an evening out together to help build meaningful connections and celebrate ambition.

“Our goal is to bring together women from all walks of life,” said Ann Vote, Chairperson for the Women’s Networking Event Committee within the chamber, “doing all different things within business or staying at home, to allow them to network and connect with each other, build camaraderie, be inspired by our speakers each year and have a lot of fun.”

Sarah Warmka, President and CEO of the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce, was instrumental in bringing in guest speaker Jimenez.

“Sarah reached out to me, like, six or seven years ago when I just had published my first book and invited me to come to the really cool Oktoberfest thing that you guys do here,” Jimenez said. “And I stayed at her house. The reception that I got from her and all of her friends, like, everything, it was amazing. So we stayed in touch. We actually stayed friends on Facebook after that. And she reached out to me last year and was like, ‘would you ever want to come and, you know, now that you’re a bigger author, and speak?’ And I was like, absolutely, yes.”

Registration for this year’s Mingle with a Purpose hit an all-time high.

“This year’s a little different in that we have a much bigger name,” Warmka said. “Abby, New York

Times bestseller, Food Network, you know, all of that. So we got a bigger name this year and this is our record-breaking crowd. We have 321 women that have registered for tonight. So that’s really cool.”

Warmka said the event attracted women for all sorts of reasons.

“As you can tell, it’s all types, some people wearing dresses, some wear jeans. Everyone’s exceptional, everyone’s invited,” she said.

“I do know that there are some people in the audience that are just Abby fans that drove. Right. Not here necessarily for the networking and professional development – here for Abby, which is really cool. It’s good.”

Lorie Jewell, Executive Director of State Street Theater, said she was excited about hearing Abby speak because “she is the kind of woman that so many of us wish we could be. She has done so many cool things in little bite-sized pieces.”

“She went on a baking contest and then started her own bakery. And then she decided to start writing novels and wrote one novel, it got published, wrote another, wrote another. And she’s just that kind of woman. Really inspiring, but yet kind of is relatable so that the average person can see themselves taking simple steps to make our dreams come true. Cool. So I’m excited to hear her message,” Jewell said.

New Ulm High School English teacher Sara Marlow said she heard about Jiminez through Lykke Books.

“I was inspired to come to this event because I did the Teacher in the Workplace program,

Summer at Lykke Books,” she said. “And when I was completing the program, they had a meeting to

setup the summer social as the kickoff event for this Mingle with a Purpose. And so then I started reading Abby Jimenez books, and was excited to hear her talk.”