NEW GIFTS IN ACTION Also, we have a stirring case study in the Gifts in Action (click to read) section this month from CALM's Great Beginnings Program that we funded in 2006.
COMMITTEES Autumn is an exciting time for our committees. The Research Committee has been working hard to find the most critical needs for our grants and is developing the 2007 ballot that will be sent to the membership early in January 2008. You will find this ballot to be most exciting. Plus, thanks to the Orfalea Fund matching our growing membership donations this year, we will have a record sum to give away!
The Oversight Committee has begun to plan for the Presentation of Funds on January 28, 2008 at the El Paseo Restaurant. With the growth in membership, we will certainly be filling the space! If any of you would like to help with this exciting event, please contact Diane Morgan who is putting all the details in place! Contact her info@womensfundsb.org.
By the way, I want to emphasize that our Site Visit and Presentation of Funds luncheons are both underwritten. Your donated funds go to the programs to help women, children, and families, not to food! Jan and Carole underwrote the Site Visit and, for the fourth year, John and Meredith Scott are underwriting the Presentation of Funds lunch!
MEMBERSHIP There is still time before December 15, 2007 to join the Fund and take part in the wonderful giving of our pooled donations that impact our community. If you want to be part of a group membership and need partners, email us at info@womensfundsb.org and our Group Membership leaders, Parm Williams and Meredith Scott will contact you. If you have pledged, you will be receiving a reminder in the mail. If you were an individual or group member last year and have not yet renewed, you will be receiving a courtesy call.
Jo Gifford, Chair
Oversight Committee
Fifty-fiv
e ladies laughed and chatted during the Third Annual Site Visit at the Davis Community Center. Women's Fund members and guests were inspired as they learned how the 2006 grants are being used to help needy women, children, and families. Site Visit Chairs, Jan Baxter and Carole MacElhenny donated luncheon food, beverages, and flowers. No monies from the Women's Fund were used to pay for this event.
Representatives from Child Abuse and Listening Mediation (CALM), Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA), Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center described how they are using the 2006 grants totaling $485,000.
Architectural renderings of CASA's new headquarters behind the Superior Court House brought tears to some eyes when they saw how children would be comforted and counseled in the new space to be completed in February 2008. CALM's representative shared the story of 17-year-old "Maria," her 18-year-old husband, and 9-month-old baby helped by the Great Beginnings program. Maria developed a rare but treatable form of cancer and had to undergo serious treatment at UCLA. (See Gifts in Action for the entire story.)
A representative from the Twelve35 Teen Center spoke last and explained how each of the previous agencie
s collaborated with the others. The ladies adjourned to the Teen Center to which the Women's Fund had given $90,000 in 2005 for equipment and furnishings to help create a safe haven for teenagers.The women's final destination was the new headquarters for the Rape Crisis Center. All the staff expressed their appreciation to be working in such a comforting environment. Each of the counseling rooms that the Women's Fund helped furnish offers special dimmed lighting, comfortable sofas, a soft stuffed animal and box of Kleenex.
"This is what it's all about," said several of the women after a day of seeing how their pooled donations through the Women's Fund are impacting the lives of South Coast women, children, and families who are in need.| In partnership with Santa Barbara Foundation |
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