Newtown Woman’s Club Celebrates 35 Years Of Service

By Jan Howard

The Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC, Inc is celebrating 35 years of continuous service to Newtown. The club was founded on March 25, 1968, by ten local women: Ella Brown, Coke Cramer, Vivian Hessler, Margaret Julian, Elsa Knight, Kay Kuhn, Maggie McMaster, MaryLou Nelson, Mollie Smith, and Lorraine VanderWende.

“From March 25, we went from ten members to 36 members at the bylaws acceptance,” Ms VanderWende, the club’s first president, recalled. “By the first official luncheon meeting, seven months later, we had 75 members. The club, which meets the third Thursday of every month at a local restaurant, now has 90 members,” she noted.

The local club is one of 55 in Connecticut that belong to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Connecticut (GFWC), one of the world’s oldest nonpartisan, nondenominational women’s volunteer service organizations.

The sole purpose of the Newtown Woman’s Club is to unite members and encourage women to improve their skills, expand their rights, and apply their abilities and special sensitivity to the problems of the community, state, and country and to provide opportunities for organized interests and participation in social, cultural, philanthropic, intellectual, and civic affairs.

The club seal was designed by Ms McMaster and Ms VanderWende. The rooster symbolizes Newtown and civic affairs, the clasped hands represent the club members’ friendship, the book, intellectual pursuit, and the crossed brushes stand for culture.

The club has annually held fundraisers that support community programs. In May 2002 the following cash donations were made: $2,400 to Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Association, $1,800 to Regional Hospice, $1,000 to Cyrenius H. Booth Library, $1,500 to the Newtown Scholarship association, $1,200 to the Newtown Fund, and $800 to Displaced Homemakers, as well as numerous smaller donations to other organizations.

Its main fundraiser is an annual pewter Christmas ornament.

“It’s been very successful,” President Barbara Krausz said. Members suggest possible subjects for the ornament, and a committee makes the final selection, she said.

Over the past ten years, the club has raised $85,000 in contributions. In addition to the above organizations, funds have been contributed to Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue, Arthritis Foundation, Special Olympics, veterans, CARE-International Aid, Newtown Summer Festival, UNICEF, America Professional Partnership for Lithuanian Education, Operation Smile, and the United Nations’ Heifer Project.

 Its fundraisers have included card parties, craft fairs, and bingo, as well as some unusual ones, such as the Most Beautiful Baby Contest for members and a Haunted Gingerbread House for which members created houses featuring ghosts and goblins, haystacks, and witches.

Ms Krausz said, “One creative member bought votes, openly, by giving grape lollipops shaped as skulls for each vote cast for her house. Of course she won. We have found that bribing members with sweets increases the amount of the total donation for the fundraiser.”

Club members also help other community organizations with fundraising efforts by providing staffing and material donations, such as collecting and delivering food and supplies to FAITH Food Pantry to help feed the needy. Annually, members assist the Regional Hospice with its fundraising Hospice Breakfast.

Its members are also involved with conservation and community improvement. Within the last two years, the club has raised the money and bought and planted more than 1,000 bulbs and seven trees at the Holcombe Preserve in cooperation with the Newtown Forestry Association. Members also participate in the annual Health Fair in Newtown. Its members are also active in a nonpartisan way by staffing the polls during election times for the Voter News Service.

“The club holds an annual craft show to display the talents of the ladies,” Ms Krausz said. This year’s craft show and luncheon was held March 20 at the Fireside Inn.

The best in show and first place winners in each category go on to the District level where they compete against members of 14 other clubs. If they win there, they compete at the state level against members of 54 clubs and then, if they win, go on to the national level.

The club also participates in state projects, and has received numerous awards and certificates for its support of various projects and concerns.

In 2000–2002, the state project was CRIS (reading for the blind and visually handicapped). Members continue to read The Newtown Bee for visually handicapped residents. For 2002–2004, the state project is Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue (CCSAR). The club held a successful fundraiser for CCSAR with the cooperation of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Department and the Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue.

“The club works with other clubs nationally to promote federal projects,” Ms Krausz said. The Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC, is participating in a grassroots campaign letter writing/email campaign to Congressional representatives in support of HR 3132, which would prevent larger, more dangerous trucks on highways. Currently, the trucking industry wants to add a third trailer to the tandem trucks already in use or raise the amount of pounds a truck is allowed to carry.

“It will cause more expense for our roadways,” she said. “We will be paying more to put more danger on our streets.”

In January 1991, the club participated with more than 8,500 GFWC members in a letter-writing campaign led by their national organization to Saddam Hussein, urging him to abide by the United Nations resolutions to end the conflict in the Middle East. At that time, Helen Kruger, then president of the local club, said, “If all the women and children of the world wrote, it might give him a way to save face and back down.”

In 1987, Women’s Club members exercised with actress Jane Powell, the celebrity leader of the “Up, Up & Away…with Arthritis.” Funds were raised to provide patient services and educational programs as well as research.

In 1987, the Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC, received commendations from then-Gov William O’Neill and then-Congressman John Rowland for their sponsorship of a “Great Decision” series that commemorated the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution.