GFWC Women’s Club of Madison 
Members of the GFWC Women’s Club of Madison (Connecticut) have been busy putting together arts and crafts bags to lift the spirits of children at the Ronald McDonald House Charities in New Haven, Connecticut. The Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut features 18 guest rooms and two respite rooms to serve the needs of families with children undergoing essential and specialized medical treatment at area hospitals.
The club’s President-elect Katherine DeBurra explained clubwomen decided to work on this project when they were unable to meet in groups due to COVID-19. Members collected crayons, glue sticks, motivational and educational coloring sheets, coloring books, and other craft projects. When the club was able to safely meet in person again, members put the arts and crafts bags together to be donated to the Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut.
“The bags came out fantastic and everyone had such a good feeling about doing it,” Katherine said. “It was so awesome to go in and give them these. It makes me so happy.”
She added the club hopes to do other similar projects to benefit this organization and the families it serves in the future.
“It’s a little thing, but an important thing,” she said.
Katherine explained the project was planned in part by Donna Farrell, a member of GFWC Women’s Club of Madison and Child Advocate Chairman for GFWC Connecticut, and that they were excited to be working on a project that focuses on children.
“Our children are our future and they need to be taken care of and those families need help sometimes,” she said. “We’re happy to do that.”
GFWC Woman’s Club of Laurel, Inc. 
Members of the GFWC Woman’s Club of Laurel, Inc. (Maryland) have made it their mission to encourage a love of reading and improve literacy in area children. As part of their Literacy for Little Ones project, clubwomen collect children’s books, stuffed animals, and other small items, make up gift packages, and distribute these packages to participating families at the local library. Club President Delysha Henry said the materials are given out during story time at the library, and the parents are offered advice on how to use the items to help teach their children.
The project was started by members of the club who are also teachers who saw that there was a need to help teach parents about reading skills and literacy overall.
“We want to make the child interested (in reading) and have it be fun for the parent and the child,” Delysha said.
She explained the club typically holds fundraisers in the fall to raise money to purchase the reading materials, and then the packages are given out to the families in the spring.
The GFWC Woman’s Club of Laurel, Inc. hosted one of these fundraisers in September, and invited friends and families to a local restaurant where a portion of the sales were dedicated to the Literacy for Little Ones project. Delysha said she was grateful to the restaurant for their help and to everyone who came out to the fundraiser.
“We appreciate them working with us,” she said.