A COLLECT FOR CLUB WOMEN
Keep us, O God, from pettiness; let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.
Let us be done with fault-finding and leave off self-seeking.
May we put away all pretense and meet each other face to face, without self-pity and without prejudice.
May we never be hasty in judgment and always generous.
Let us take time for all things; make us to grow calm, serene, gentle.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses, straightforward and unafraid.
Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences; that in the big things of life we are at one.
And may we strive to touch and to know the great common, human heart of us all, and, O Lord God, let us not forget, to be kind!
~ Mary Stewart
Every day the women of the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club are committed to kindness and to transforming lives with hands-on projects that provide immediate impact in their community. They are the hearts of our community. Embracing the motto Unity in Diversity, each member pairs her unique strengths with the strengths of other members to work together on service projects that encompass arts and culture, health and wellness, environment, education, civic engagement, social and spiritual betterment. I learned about the history and amazing work of this ‘force for good’ in Fuquay-Varina from Jeannette Moore-Burlock, who assumed the office of president of the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club in May 2022.
She relates that historically, The Woman’s Club traces its origins to 1868 when Jane Cunningham Croly, a professional journalist, attempted to attend an all-male press club dinner honoring novelist Charles Dickens. Denied admittance based on her gender, Croly formed a women’s club called Sorosis (meaning aggregation) to further the causes of women.
Across the nation other groups of women likewise organized, and in 1890 they attended a convention in New York City to discuss the causes of their gender. From that convention, Croley formed the General Federation of Women’s Clubs to support and further the efforts of these groups by using the same resources in their mission to provide education, improve working conditions, health care and other reforms, as well as to lobby together for women’s causes.
Locally, North Carolina’s Women’s Club dates from 1902 when seven clubs held a convention in Winston-Salem. North Carolina’s Sallie Southall Cotten was a leader in this movement. From this meeting came the North Carolina Federation, which began with 20 clubs federated in 1903. Fuquay-Varina was federated in 1927.
Did you know that Fuquay-Varina’s first public library was the proud project of the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club? The library on South Fuquay Street, founded in 1954, served the community for nearly 50 years until the opening of the new Fuquay-Varina Community Library on Bramble Drive, also a project of the FVWC. In fact, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs started more than half the libraries in the United States.
But furthering the use of public libraries is only one of the community-enriching goals of the Club. Jeanette provided an overview of a few of the other projects spearheaded by the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club.
Scholarships and Grants: The FVWC administers, as well as provides, a number of academic scholarships that are awarded to students in Fuquay-Varina High School, Willow Spring High School, local charter schools, and magnet schools. It also administers grants to teachers for special projects.
Arts: To further art in our community, the FVWC holds a juried art fair for the local schools with jurists from the NC Museum of Art. The art fair is held at Windsor Point and is open to the public. Winners move forward to a district competition.
Education: Through the “Wake Up and Read” project, members collect and donate gently used books to children in our community to give them access to books in their home.
Homes for the Elderly: A FVWC group hosts monthly bingo, interacting with residents, giving out gift bags of snacks and personal items that cannot be purchased with SNAP benefits.
Flag Retirement Project: Members take up torn and tattered flags, and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts retire these flags according to flag code.
Environmental Education: As one of their projects, they collect plastic bags and turn them over to people who use them to make bedding for homeless people. Also, the Club women encourage people to shred used Christmas trees as part of their environmental initiative.
Parks & Recreation: The Club plants trees in local parks in honor of people who are park-minded and instrumental in our town. They also plant trees with the names of people who have passed away. Members have worked on special projects throughout the state for the past two years, like the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and they are also working to improve trails in Fuquay-Varina.
Wreaths Across America: In collaboration with the American Legion, in mid-December, volunteers put out 425 wreaths on gravestones of military veterans. The FVWC takes part in our town.
Backpack Buddies: In collaboration with the American Legion, the Woman’s Club donates and delivers truckloads of food to schools. They also provide snacks during the school year, as well as food for kids to take home for the summer.
Police and Firefighter Appreciation: The Woman’s Club honors law enforcement officers and firefighters and last year gave them gift cards in appreciation for their service.
The Strong Woman Project: Each month, the FVWC highlights a woman in the Fuquay-Varina area for her strengths and posts her story on the FVWC Facebook page. These articles are also archived in Fuquay-Varina Museum.
Voter Information: The FVWC publishes and disseminates voter information.
Monetary and/or Volunteer Support: FVWC raises money during the year that is used to support community programs like Meals on Wheels, Fuquay-Varina Food Pantry, UNICEF, FACES, Backpack Buddies, SPCA, Miracle League of the Triangle, The Carying Place, the Fuquay-Varina Arts Center, and the International Festival, to name a few. They also provide volunteer support.
Jeanette says, “Every year we decide what we like, to try something new, to go the extra mile, to take projects and ‘up’ them a little bit, come up with new projects outside the box.” This year the FVWC will be holding a Christmas Home Tour as a fundraiser. Also, they will work with the Rotary Club and the Lions Club, enlarging their sphere in the next two years and reaching out to a bigger audience.
I spoke to Lesley Phipps of the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club’s Health and Wellness Committee, which she co-chairs with Barbara Kennedy, to talk about their projects.
For the past dozen years, the Health and Wellness Committee has hosted monthly bingo at Homes for the Elderly in Fuquay-Varina. This is a great outreach that helps the residents and fills the hearts of the members who take part. They bring home-baked treats and enjoy a time of interacting with the residents, talking to them about what is going on in their lives and helping them keep active. They give paper goods and personal items as bingo prizes.
During the holidays last year, the group rounded up their shears and sewing machines and cut and sewed 65 Christmas stockings from fabric donated by Woman’s Club members. They filled these stockings with health and beauty items, cookies, and other useful goodies and gave them to each resident. Over time, some of the residents have moved into nursing homes, but members of this group still like to keep in touch.
The Health and Wellness Committee also partnered with the American Legion Post 116 Cruisers for the Backpack Buddies program. They supply food at two local schools for kids to bring home at the end of the week. Funds for this project were donated by Woman’s Club members, American Legion members, as well as friends and neighbors. Lesley recalls fond memories of shopping for the food and how she was moved to tears at the generous amount of food collected and delivered to schools for distribution.
Shirley Simmons and Debra Semple, co-chairs of the Education and Library Community Service Projects Committee, spoke with me about some of their projects.
This committee has a long history of supporting library projects (as mentioned previously). In addition, through their “Wake Up and Read” project, the committee collected 1,053 books and $190 in 2021, and 1,200 books and $200 in 2022 in partnership with community organizations like The Garden Club, book clubs, churches, and individual donors. Shirley tells how her 11-year-old granddaughter went through her personal stash of books and donated several. Volunteers in the county personally delivered these books to recipient children.
The committee’s ongoing projects involve scholarships and grants. The Sallie Southall Cotten Scholarship, a joint project with the Junior Woman’s Club, is an academic scholarship for local high school seniors. Others include the Hugh O’Brian Youth Scholarship (HOBY) and the Leadership and Entrepreneur Scholarship for area high school students. The committee also administers two scholarship programs for the town: a two-year tech education scholarship and a mini-grant program where teachers can write a project proposal and apply for funding; 547 mini-grants have been given. Several interesting projects have been funded through this grant, like a butterfly garden, and The Dolls Project. Through The Dolls Project, aimed at teaching high school students the responsibility of having a child, students were given a doll that eats, drinks and cries to take home and care for.
This committee is also involved in collecting art for the juried art fair held at Windsor Point for kids from local schools to showcase their artwork. Winners move forward to a district and then state competition.
Jeanette Moore-Burlock says, “The Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club offers women comradery, the chance to forge new friendships, to do good works, to help their community, and to be kinder in general.” She notes they are always looking for new members.
How do you become a member of the Fuquay-Varina Woman’s Club? Jeanette advises, “Attend a meeting first; see if you want to be a part of this group.”
Built in 1936 as a Women’s Club, their meeting house at 602 N. Ennis Street in Fuquay-Varina is on the National Register of Historic Homes. They gather there on the second Monday of the month from September through May. Check out their website: https://fuquayvarinawomansclub.wordpress.com/ for more information.
