100 for 100 Awards and Book Sharing

Pam Lemieux, 1st Vice governor of District One, presented award pins to each of our Club members who volunteered 100 hours of service to our community last year.  In addition, Pam presented Altrusa of Carroll County with a certificate citing our donation last year of over 100 books to children in our community.  The enthusiasm and caring of our members is always inspiring.

A special guest speaker at our last meeting was Laura Cummings, owner of White Birch Books, who brought books to share and suggestions of great new reads.

Wildflower Bookmarks

Some of our members spent a cold winter day making beautiful bookmarks with dried wildflowers pressed by Diane Robinson.  These will be sold as part of our June 2nd Plant Sale/Book Sale fundraiser with the Cook Library in Tamworth.  The bookmarks are beautiful!

Diane, Ellen and Kathy creating bookmarks.

Helping the Laura Foundation for Autism and Epilepsy

On January 27 and 28 many members of our Club worked at the Laura Foundation Pond Hockey Tournament at King Pine assisting with the fundraising.  Our group sold breakfasts, lunches, bagels, coffee and snacks throughout the day helping the Laura Foundation for Autism and Epilepsy raise almost $55,000 toward their programs to help children.  The sun shone brightly, spirits were high and players and their families had a lot of fun at the event.

Nina Monaco, Donna West, Ellen Andreano, Cathy Sholtanis, Kathy Laracy with trays full of sandwiches.

Gifts to Help our Local Non-Profits

As part of the Christmas and Holiday season, our members purchased gifts and raised money to help three of our local non-profit organizations.

We gathered cash, gift cards and gift items for those at Starting Point.

Kathy and Linda presenting volunteer Fran with our donations.

We gathered cash, gift cards and lots of bags of pet food for the Conway Humane Society.

Peg and Nancy presenting our gifts to the shelter. What is most amazing is that neither came home with a puppy!

We made a cash donation to the Laura Foundation for Autism and Epilepsy and members volunteered to work at the Laura Foundation pond hockey fundraiser.

Kathy with Amy Mahoney, Laura Foundation Director

Party for Carroll County Foster Families

Altrusa of Carroll County works with other organizations to support and serve families in our communities.  For 10 years we have partnered with the DCYF to provide a Christmas party and gifts for the foster families in our area.  What a fun day we had on December 9th with about 70 family members and children!  There were activity centers with cookies to decorate, face-painting, nails painted, Lego construction, delicious food, hot chocolate and a visit from Santa.  In addition to all this fun, each child left with a new book and new mittens.  Many thanks to the ladies from DCYF who worked with us, and to Evelyn Ardito who coordinated and organized the event.  This put us all in the Christmas spirit!

Christmas Party

On December 11th Altrusa of Carroll County celebrated with a Christmas party hosted by Vice President Kathy Miller.  It was a wonderful time with over 30 members and guests attending!  In addition to good food and great camaraderie, we also collected items needed by the local women's shelter and for the Conway Humane Society.  Our baskets of gifts were overflowing! In addition, we put together platters of Christmas cookies which were distributed to our local nursing homes, Mineral Springs and Mountain View Nursing home.  As always, giving is the best gift!

Helping to End 68-Hours of Hunger

One day a month our crew of Altrusans helps to pack approximately 150 bags of food for local children in need.  This provides children with enough food to feed them for the 68 hours over the weekend.