New Project! Adopting Grace House- a shelter for victims of domestic abuse

 At our February meeting, our group heard from Deb Weinstein, the director of Starting Point, a local non profit whose mission is:

• Ensuring quality services are provided to victims of relationship violence and sexual abuse;
• Preventing future relationship violence;
• Promoting social change ; and
• Encouraging accountability and education for perpetrators and stalkers. 

Deb shared much important information such as the increase from assisting 5,000 victims to get housing in 2019-2020, to 16,000 the following year . Housing can be emergency or shelter housing. The pattern that they are currently seeing is people staying longer and having a higher level of trauma with increased long term needs.

Starting Point runs a shelter called Grace House. It is a safe environment for victims to get help in the way of emotional support as well as housing. Our Altrusa Club is starting a new project; Care bags, which incoming guests will receive. The bags are filled with personal care items as well as a not of encouragement. Many times when someone leaves an unsafe situation they literally only have the clothes on their backs so being able to have a bag with shampoos, conditioners, toothbrushes etc. is helpful. 

Pictured: Nancy Spaulding, President, Deb Weinstein from Starting Point holding the Care Bag and Cathy Babutt who brought the idea to the club.

Winter Meeting Update

 At our last meeting we discussed changing the time and day of our meetings. Winter is here and since many of our members travel a distance to attend our meeting it was decided to change to a noontime meeting. We have been meeting on Tuesdays but since the library has a minor conflict at noon, it was decided to meet the first Monday of the month for our January, February and March meetings We will assess at the March meeting whether or not to make this a permanent time change.

 January 3, February7, March 7. The Board will provide a pizza lunch for the January meeting.

 

Santa's Cookie Elves sharing their goodies

 Merry Merry to one and all. It is wonderful to be able to share our talents with our communities and and honor to be able to serve them in a variety of ways. 

Santa's cookie elves hard at work creating platters of home baked treats. Although tempting, not a cookie was taken by the elves. Platters were delivered to 

Conway Police Department, Conway Vet, Starting Point, White Mountain Community Health Center, Gibson Center, Mineral Springs, Merriman House, North Conway Fire Department, The Waystation, Adult Day Center, Ossipee nursing home and the Madison library. Everyone was so appreciative of our efforts.

 

Fall workshop focus on Membership

Members Diane, Nancy, Barb, Pat, Cathy and Ruth attended the District One Fall workshop to have fun and learn more about how to retain and gain new members. Our group had some terrific ideas such as new member gathering, fun activities during the summer  and inviting friends to help us in our volunteer events.

                               Members of Carroll County, Laconia and Meredith clubs invite their Altrusa sisters to come to April Conference which will be held in North Conway. Their jingle asking Altrusa to come help search for Bruce the moose who is on the loose was well received.

Take Note: Lot's of Ways to get involved.

 Fall is off to a quick start for our Altrusa group. Our last meeting, on October 5, was held at the Madison Public Library and it was terrific to see everyone in person. It was a brown bag affair although the Membership Committee brought drinks and desserts. At our November meeting we will have Crystal Sawyer as our guest speaker. Crystal is the director of Carroll Academy/Carroll Country Adult Ed.

Here are some dates to note:

                        October 28- 68 Hours of Hunger 10 AM Kennett Middle School

                        November 2 at 6 PM. Brown Bag with the board providing dessert and drinks.

                        November 5-6 District Workshop in Portland- the focus is on Membership 

                        Monday, November 22 - 68 hour of hunger packing ( this is due to Thanksgiving) 

Be on the lookout for DCYF Christmas party Saturday, December 11 at Madison Elementary School noon- 4. We will need help in a variety of ways.

 

Stuff it !! Help us support the End 68 Hours of Hunger program.

 Well, the author does not mean this in any derogatory way but literally can you help stuff it. The "it" are really about 100-120 bags for the End 68 hours of Hunger program that we, as a club, offer to fill each month.  We  meet the last Thursday of each month at 10:00am at Kennett Middle school to fill bags, organize  and restock food items. The bags are distributed to preschool and elementary children who are considered food insecure. Did you know that 1 in 5 children are food insecure; they do not have enough food on a regular basis, sometimes missing entire meals. If you want to help please contact Pat Kehoe, our program co-ordinator.

Altrusa sisters serving our community

 Summertime brought not only the fun events of Pirate's Cove Mini Golf but serving the local foster families with a summer fun day at Tin Mountain. In true Altrusan spirit, our sisters set up games, tables for pizza, provided a multitude of fun activities and made this a really fun time for local families to gather and socialize. 

Thank YouTrail's End for the awesome ice cream desserts!

Pat M, Pat K, Nancy S, Cathy B and Jan E prep art activity