2026 SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo featuring Patricia Heaton

SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo to be held Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 2026

Money raised supports the Telfair Mammography Fund and uninsured and underinsured women across the region

St. Joseph's/Candler is excited to host the 24th annual SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo® once again. This year's event will be held Wednesday, Sept. 30th, at the Savannah Convention Center. 

The SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo is an annual fundraiser for St. Joseph's/Candler's Mary Telfair Women's Hospital, which includes the Mammography Fund at Telfair Pavilion. The purpose of raising money for this fund is to provide programs, services and capital support for mammography related initiatives that benefit appropriately qualified patients who are uninsured or underinsured.

The SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Telfair Mammography Fund to meet this goal since its inception over a decade ago. The 23rd annual event raised a record amount of more than $282,000.

About this year's speaker

This year's speaker is Emmy-winning actress, writer and philanthropist Patricia Heaton.

Patricia Heaton has created memorable, lovable and relatable characters on TV steadily for the past 25 years. She is perhaps best known for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond for nine seasons. She followed that up with another nine-season run, staring on ABC’s The Middle.

She won two Emmy® Awards for her role in Everyone Loves Raymond and was nominated seven times. In addition to her Emmy® wins, she is also the recipient of the Best Comedy Actress award from the Viewers for Quality Television, a SAG award and three SAG nominations in the Best Actress category for her role on Raymond.

Her most recent role in the CBS comedy, Carol’s Second Act, helped inspire the best-selling book, “Your Second Act.” When Heaton’s children left the nest, she discovered she had the time to pursue passions that were previously placed on hold, both personally and professionally. In the book, she shares wisdom from her own personal journey as well as insight from stories of numerous people across the country. 

She now finds her greatest fulfillment as a committed philanthropist and founding member of World Vision’s Celebrity Ambassador Network. Heaton has traveled to Rwanda, Zambia and Syria with the humanitarian organization, which focuses on conducting relief, development, and advocacy activities in its work with children, families, and their communities in nearly 100 countries.

Heaton launched her homewares line, Patricia Heaton Home with Walmart. Born out of her love for spending quality time with family and friends, the line is a natural progression of her love for entertaining. On the Emmy Award winning Food Network series, Patricia Heaton Parties, she drew inspiration from her family and travels and invited audiences to join her while she served up party friendly foods.  She brought that same sensibility to print with her first cookbook, “Patricia Heaton’s Food for Family & Friends.” 

In addition to her acting and producing credits, Heaton is a New York Times bestselling author whose book “Motherhood and Hollywood — How to Get A Job Like Mine” was her first venture into the publishing arena.

Heaton is a mother to four sons and lives in Los Angeles with her husband with whom she co-founded FourBoys Films.