Zonta Club of Harrisburg-Hershey

President’s Report

2009-2010

Another busy year addressing local women’s needs while continuing to put a more public face on our Club!

  • The club worked with doing deep cleaning and painting for the Brethren Housing Association, an organization that works to build a future with hope for homeless women and their children.
  • Partnered with two different women’s outreach groups, Domestic Violence Services Cumberland/Perry Counties (DVSCP) and Shalom House on their holiday fundraising, the first by making and selling Reindeer Food, the other by doing gift wrapping for donations at a local shopping mall.
  • Continued our own holiday tradition of hosting a local organization (we chose the medical ministry at an inner city church) at our Club Christmas party where we supplied this organization with bags of requested supplies needed to meet the needs throughout the winter season, e.g., over the counter cold medicines, socks, underwear, toiletries, etc.
  • Continued our partnership with Randi’s Race, a well established walk in support of raising funds for domestic violence services, providing volunteers for their event, as well as had a Club Table at the event.
  • The Zonta Club of Harrisburg-Hershey was honored in October 2009 at a Gala Event sponsored by the DVSCP. The DVSCP awarded our club the first Award of Excellence that they have given out to an organization that has partnered with them. The evening was incredible and attended by 12 club members and their guests.
  • The Zonta Club of Harrisburg-Hershey was able to have 5 participants attend the Spring Workshop.

With regard to giving:

Total ZI Foundation - $2,000

Total local contributions - $5,966

  • Awarded both the Jane Klausman and Young Women in Public Affairs Scholarships to local women, and our Jane Klausman went onto win both District 3 and International
  • Gave grants to five local organizations in support of their work with women and children:

One of our highlights for the year (and I had so much fun being the narrator and MC for this event): Held a Gala Celebration in honor of the 30th Anniversary of the Zonta Club of Harrisburg-Hershey. We decorated with yellow roses, invited all of our past members and those scholarship winners we could locate as well as the D3 Board. We were thrilled with the turnout, including some of our past scholarship winners, past members, and Irma Dillon traveled to share this evening with us. We had the opportunity to have our club’s founder, Gusy Gales’s family with us, and her daughter spoke about what Zonta had meant to her mother, and we honored our own Mary Ann Mihok as the remaining original Charter member of the Harrisburg- Hershey Club, for all her invaluable contributions to our club, over her 30 years as a Zontian. We were also fortunate to have representatives from many of the organizations we have provided services and/or funds to over the years speak at this event. (And doing what Zonta does best, we had a raffle type auction and made it a fundraiser).

All of this was done with:

Started the year with 19 members, added 2 during the year for a total of 21. (Interesting note to add is that both of the new members found us through our Club Website.

Fund raising hours: approximately 190

Hands on Service hours: approximately 224

Respectfully,

Carol Powell

President, Zonta Club of Harrisburg-Hershey

District 3 Fall Conference

October 1-3, 2010, Atlantic City, New Jersey