Author: SMayuga

By Annabelle Bunch

Imagine what it is like to have to prick your finger ten to twenty times a day or to give yourself four to five shots of insulin daily. Over the last 11 years, I have had approximately 23,000 finger pricks and 29,000 shots of insulin, I am a teenager living with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and these are my daily realities. My platform, Just Too Sweet, is designed to promote awareness, advocacy, and action to find a cure for T1D. Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas loses the ability to produce insulin – a hormone essential to turning food into energy. It strikes both children and adults suddenly and is unrelated to diet or lifestyle. Management requires constant carbohydrate counting, blood-glucose testing, and a lifelong dependence on injected insulin. I am committed to helping others through Just Too Sweet by educating, raising funds, and empowering those who live with T1D to embrace life and create their own definition of normal.

On February 23, 2006, I was diagnosed with T1D at the age of 4. My life changed forever that day. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), 1.25 million Americans are living with T1D, and new cases of diabetes are diagnosed every 30 seconds. Diabetes is a serious disease and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Being insulin dependent is a daily challenge. For those of us dealing with this disease, it is important to eat healthy, exercise, and check our blood sugar levels multiple times each day. Some days it is very hard to be an active 16-year-old while juggling T1D because keeping my blood sugar in the target range takes constant management.

Since 2008, I have worked to make a difference in the fight against T1D. At the age of 6, I started participating in JDRF walks and raising money to help fund research. The Belle’s Bunch team has raised more than $11,000 to help find a cure for T1D. I was the inspiration for a children’s book, Sweet AB, that I self-published to help children better understand diabetes. I have had the opportunity to read Sweet AB and share my story with more than 500 people in four states. In June 2016, my platform, Just Too Sweet, was selected as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) Southern Region President’s Philanthropy Project during their national convention in Baltimore, Maryland. I served as the featured speaker at the GFWC Southern Region Convention in Jacksonville, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia, where I discussed my own struggle with diabetes, promoted my book, and raised money for JDRF. I have created the Just Too Sweet Wristband Campaign and partnered with LPGA member, Ally McDonald, to bring awareness to T1D and Just Too Sweet. I am a certified JDRF Youth Advocacy Leader. I organized the JDRF Sneaker Campaign at my high school where the students helped bring awareness to The Walk to Cure Diabetes by purchasing and displaying paper sneakers. I have participated in the #T1DLooksLikeMe social media campaign. Through two different resolutions, the Mississippi Senate and House of Representatives have recognized my platform work as an outstanding example of service and commitment to the State of Mississippi. I have served as a Teen Advocate for the Promise to Remember Me Campaign by working with Mississippi’s Congressmen to lobby for federal assistance in funding Type 1 Diabetes research. I participated in the 2017 JDRF Hope Gala which helped raise $347,000 for research to cure T1D. My story and platform work inspired a representative from Kendra Scott to contact me and design the Annabelle Collection which is a jewelry collection that will be sold in the Mississippi store and online with 20% of all sales being donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund. I was selected as 1 of 150 children and teens across the country to serve as a delegate to the JDRF Children’s Congress in Washington, D.C., where I spent two days educating our country’s leaders on what it is like to live with T1D and advocating research funding to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

As Miss Mississippi’s Outstanding Teen 2018, I will expand my work with JDRF and continue to raise money and help find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. I have a unique perspective to shed light on this disease and to serve as a role model and mentor for young children who are diagnosed with T1D and other illnesses. Helping others understand the importance of being brave and how to live without letting a disease define who they are is my ultimate goal. I will continue to partner with organizations and individuals who can bring awareness to T1D and the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen brand. Just Too Sweet is an excellent tool to promote the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen Organization because of its expansive reach that focuses on appreciating your health, understanding your limitations, adapting your attitude to make the best of a situation, and most importantly, defining normal on your own terms. My platform is a natural fit with the MAOTeen national platform because Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals treat 935 children with Type 1 Diabetes every day. With T1D there are no days off, and there is no cure. Learning you have diabetes is scary and confusing, but with a little help it is easy to see that life can be just as sweet living with T1D.

The Alzheimer’s Association reports that more than 5 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer’s, and that number could reach as high as 16 million by the year 2050. They also report that it’s the sixth leading cause of death, and kills more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. Ending Alzheimer’s is a cause that needs attention, and as GFWC clubwomen, you can make that happen.

There are several ways you and your club can observe the month. Firstly, you can find a local walking event near you.

The Woman’s Club of Emerson (New Jersey) recently participated in the Walk to Fight Alzheimer’s, pictured above.

This month, the GFWC Woman’s Club of New Tampa will participate in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s for their second year in a row. The team is led by Treasurer Caralyn Paul, who lost her father a year ago to complications associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Many New Tampa clubwomen have family members and friends who have been affected by Alzheimer’s, and so they wanted the club to focus on raising awareness to help advance research to help treat, and eventually prevent, Alzheimer’s disease.

The Carrollton Civic Woman’s Club (Georgia) has participated in West Georgia’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s for ten years. Clubwomen walk, volunteer, and contribute monetary donations, with an additional club donation made through the Home Life Service Program each year. The picture below features Past Club President Nancy Johnson with her family at last year’s walk. Her daughter-in-law is a Care Consultant with the Georgia chapter of Alzheimer’s Association, which is one of the reasons the club supports the fight against Alzheimer’s.

But the club’s work doesn’t end there. They have also supported their local Alzheimer Support Group for over twenty years by providing cookies for their monthly meetings. Each member in their Home Life Community Service Program has taken part in the hospitable tradition that supports family members who have loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s.

The disease can be very difficult for families to grapple with, so by supporting an Alzheimer’s Support Group, your club can be of great comfort to them, and show that you care. Other ways you can help include hosting your own benefit for Alzheimer’s disease, or supporting GFWC Partner Easterseals, which offers Adult Day Services that include programs for people with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

GFWC clubs have been dedicated both to ending Alzheimer’s, and providing support to those whose loved ones suffer from it. You can make a difference in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease all year long, but if your club is looking for ways to help, there’s no better time to get started than National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.

The Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF program was originally established to help children who were effected by World War II, but the well-loved and easily recognizable tradition has continued. Each year, children throughout the United States take a UNICEF box with them on Halloween night to collect change and donations, using a night of candy-filled celebration to think of other children less fortunate than them.

But kids aren’t the only ones who participate, and they certainly aren’t the only ones who can be of great support. Many GFWC clubs have their own collections. The Stone Mountain Woman’s Club (Georgia) took part in the festivities and passed out UNICEF boxes, encouraging members to add change to it daily throughout October so that their boxes will be jingling with coins when they bring them back in November. We pick up and hold on to spare change all the time, and this club is cashing it in for a cause.

The Metropolitan Richmond Woman’s Club (Virginia) did Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF this year for the first time. President Lela Martin’s theme as president is “Connect with Metro”, and the club’s participation will do just that. She fondly remembers trick-or-treating for UNICEF as a child, and how it gave her a sense of connection to the children she would be helping, even if they lived far from her.

Club chairman Lyn Swallen ordered boxes from UNICEF and filled them with treats. Members will exchange the candy with coins, cash, or checks. For donations they can fill the boxes themselves, take them to their workplaces, or trick-or-treat on Halloween.

UNICEF determines the countries that need the most help, and allocates the money collected from the Trick-or-Treat program to specific programs in those countries. Clubs support GFWC Partner UNICEF all year round, but since Halloween is so linked to childhood, it seems a fitting time to come together and help ensure that disadvantaged children around the world have the support and resources that they need.

Make A Difference Day is an annual event where volunteers nationwide come together to do community service. While GFWC clubs volunteer all year round, the day is a celebration of how much better the world could be if more people followed that example and made time to improve the lives of others. This year’s event is on October 28^th, and unsurprisingly, many GFWC clubs are taking up the challenge to unite with volunteers across the country to make their communities better places to live in.

The Seaward Woman’s Club (New Hampshire) will collect canned goods and other food at their local grocery stores, and will donate it to the five pantries in their area. They will also be collecting food, clothing, and other personal supplies for the local City Mission. The club has been doing this project for Make A Difference Day annually, and are looking forward to another successful year. Similarly, the Antioch Junior Woman’s Club (Illinois) will stand out front of their local grocery store to collect non-perishable foods and money which will be given directly to Open Arms Mission to help stock their food pantry.

The Centennial Woman’s Club of Tullahoma (Tennessee) is running for a cause this Make A Difference Day by participating in the first annual Spooktacular 5K and Monster Mile Fun Run and encouraging others to join. The proceeds of the event will go towards local charities, including the South Jackson Civic Center— Light Up South Jackson, which is a community improvement project the club spearheaded in 2014. Since then they have already raised $86,000, and are trying to reach their goal of $100,000 by the end of the year, with Tullahoma city officials agreeing to match that amount.

The Woman’s Club of Denville/Rockaway (New Jersey) is using the day to observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and will be hosting a Kickboxing Fundraiser at the local health club, with funds going directly to the American Cancer Society’s Reach to Recovery Program, which matches trained volunteer breast cancer survivors with people living with breast cancer to provide them with hope and support.

As these diverse club projects prove, there is room to help everywhere. This year, encourage your friends and family to join in on Make A Difference Day so they can see how a few extra hands and open hearts can make a world of difference to the people who need it.

Hunger statistics have always been troubling, but they continue to get worse. The Food and Agricultural Organization reported that from 2015 to 2016, the estimated number of undernourished people in the world rose from 777 million to 815 million.

The organization established World Food Day in 1979 to raise awareness about issues involving food distribution and hunger. Nonprofit organizations around the world come together every October 16^th to observe the day with events that help raise awareness and money for reducing poverty and hunger, which are inextricably linked.

Each year, World Food Day has a different theme to target an area where taking action is necessary. 2017’s theme is “Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development.” The ultimate goal is to work towards long term changes by investing in a system that is sustainable, and changing the way we distribute food so that people, particularly poor people, have more access to it, and that perhaps one day we will live in a world without hunger. While those are some large goals, individuals can make their own difference by prioritizing the issue of hunger and having projects in their community. So what can your club do this year to mark the day?

• Organize a food drive for your community. Additionally, since food banks can buy bulk food at a discount, consider donating money to help them make those purchases.
• Support organizations that work toward ending hunger. One of GFWC’s sponsors, Heifer International, is the perfect example of who to support, as it is their mission to ensure that impoverished areas have access to sustainable agriculture.
• Volunteer at a community farm.
• Host or volunteer at a meal packaging event.
• Look for programs to support in your area that will ensure that schoolchildren who rely on school meals also have food for afterschool and over the weekends.
• Create a community garden so local residents have the opportunity to grow and eat food that is both healthy and affordable. You can also donate surplus produce to food banks and soup kitchens that accept more than non-perishable food.

Additionally, you can make a difference right in your kitchen by eating sustainably! Buy food at your local farmers market, or search for brands that support small-scale farmers. If you purchase Fair Trade certified food and clothing, it ensures that the people who grew or produced it are treated and paid fairly.

So organize a project or find a local event in your area this World Food Day to be a part of the global mission to fight hunger!

GFWC’s clubhouses all have their own architectural personalities and histories. For example, the Atlanta Woman’s Club’s (Georgia) clubhouse was inspired by a French chateau! William A. Wimbush, a distinguished Atlanta attorney, returned from visiting his friend’s chateau in Southern France, so he commissioned the building of the Wimbish House in 1906 so his family had a home that reflected their social status. He hired architect Walter T. Downing to design it, and the family lived there from 1906-1919 until the Atlanta Woman’s Club purchased the home for $47,500 to use as their clubhouse.

The Victorian-era home is one of the last residences on what was once considered Atlanta’s “Mansion Row.” It has since been restored, but the home still recalls the turn of the century, especially amongst the new and chic buildings around it.

In the early 1920s, the Miami Woman’s Club clubhouse was designed by local architect August Geiger. With a symmetrical composition, a garden courtyard, a porte-cochere, and semi-circular arched windows, it’s an example of the adaptation of Spanish Renaissance Revival style architecture.

The building’s original metal cresting that topped the roof and other ornamentation was deteriorated by salt air, so it was removed in 1951. In 2009, the windows and doors were all replaced with hurricane proof glass.

The club wants to protect the building, so they decided to create a commercial partnership that will guarantee the building’s long term stability, and so two world class restaurants lease out two of the clubhouse’s three floors. The Miami Woman’s Club is eagerly awaiting restoration, which is in the permitting process and which will include returning the cresting that was removed in 1951, so that their building can be appreciated for years to come.

Unlike clubs that purchased buildings that already existed, the Florence Woman’s Club bought land in 1914, established a building fund in 1919, and constructed their clubhouse in 1929 for $9,420. The 16,260 square foot building was the last Spanish Colonial Revival building left in Florence by 1982.

Similarly, the GFWC Ossoli Circle (Tennessee) bought a lot so a clubhouse could be built on it in the early 1930s. Barber and McMurray, Knoxville’s best architects, were hired for the job. Barber thought that since the club was the oldest federated woman’s club in the South, that its look should match that. He wanted it to look southern to match its history and southern ladies, but also give the appearance that it had been on the property for many years. One of the ways he accomplished this feat was to use hand-pressed brick, just like the Southern antebellum mansions.

GFWC clubhouses may be unique in style, but they all provide a place for women to come together and dream big for the difference they want to make in the world.

Thank you to every club that contributed!

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that as of 2017, a total of 868 abducted children have been rescued specifically because of the AMBER Alert program. To send out an AMBER Alert, law enforcement needs photos and identifying information, and with cases of child abduction, time is of the essence.

In order to reduce the time involved, several rotary clubs developed the Rotary AMBER Alert Child ID Program for the state of Connecticut, and the Women’s Club of Danbury-New Fairfield (Connecticut) has been an active supporter of the program since 2003.

The Danbury Rotary Club purchased the first two systems in Connecticut, and currently operate five. A system includes a computer, camera, printer, cards, and instruction sheets for how to use the cards. Sheila Vetter, chair of the Women’s Club of Danbury’s program, explained that her husband, chair of the Rotary Club of Danbury’s program, reached out to her club to seek their help in keeping up with the demands of their successful program, which has enrolled 30,000 children. The clubwomen voted unanimously. “After all, young children and grandmothers are perfect together,” Sheila joked.

The club holds events, some of which have had up to 500 children attend, where parents can get ID cards for their children that help speed up the process of broadcasting an Amber Alert when a child is abducted. The card is credit card sized so that a parent can keep it in their wallet. It has a colored photo of the child, physical description (including height, weight, eye color, date of birth, and any distinguishing marks), and a unique ID number. Not included on the card are names or addresses so that if a parent were to lose the card, there would be nothing to lead a child abuser to the child. The child’s name and information is kept secure in a national data base which only state police communication centers can access. If the worst should happen, and a child goes missing, a parent can present their ID card to law enforcement, who then has everything they need to activate an AMBER alert if necessary.

“What I call the Wonderful Women jumped right in,” Sheila said to describe the women who work three hour shifts to run the computers, explain the program, hand cards out to parents, take the height and weight of children, and put in hard work to make it run smoothly. She continued, “We all love it and the kids are so cute. But the best are the parents who are so grateful we are volunteering to do this. It’s also been a challenge but fun to bring two very different clubs together into a cohesive working team.”

The Danbury Rotary Club was able to enroll more children than other clubs in the state because of the Women’s Club of Danbury-New Fairfield commitment, and that means because of them, more Connecticut parents have taken precautions to keep their children safe.

GFWC’s Juniorettes, ages 12-18, are examples of how the call to do community service can be answered at any age. Juniorettes have school, extracurricular activities, and social lives to juggle, but they find time to make positive changes in their communities. In this blog post, we will discuss project suggestions for the Juniorette age group and their club advisors.

Since Juniorettes are students, it means that school can be a great and convenient place to accomplish their projects. Talk to your school to set up donation boxes and consider some of these great projects:

• Organize a donation drive for the local food bank.
• Collect winter coats for the homeless.
• Start a book drive for the local library, hospital, school, or relevant charity of choice.
• Collect toiletries for the area women’s shelter.
• Have a holiday toy drive for children from low-income families.

Those boxes can also be put in churches and local businesses because the more drop off locations, the better! Besides projects that involve donations, there are many more ways that teenagers can make a difference in their communities. The following ideas are projects that Juniorette clubs can do together as a group, meaning they can bond and have a good time while doing community service at the same time:

• Organize a car wash (or dog wash!) for a cause.
• Host a charity bake sale.
• Contact the local senior center or nursing home to learn how you can brighten their days, maybe by reading to them, etc.
• Volunteer at a Special Olympics event near you.
• Create care packages for the homeless shelter.
• Do a run/walk charity event.

Additionally, there are many ways that teens can put their efforts toward helping St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which would be a great way to acknowledge Childhood Cancer Awareness Month this September:

• Raise funds by hosting a Jude Teen Gala, while also getting to have some fun!
• Team Up for St. Jude by picking a sporting event at your school and donating a portion of game ticket sales, organizing a sprit week for fundraising, etc.
• Make craft kits to be distributed to patients throughout the week to entertain them and their families.
• Create gift bags for the waiting room filled with items like art supplies so that patients have something to do while they wait for their doctor.

Juniorettes are trail blazers in their age group, and show how community service is an important and worthwhile commitment. There are countless ways that they can give back to their communities, and they are doing just that! We hope some of these ideas spark your interest and become your next project.