Summer Giving Project
This year’s SEV summer charity giving event was held on June 19 in conjunction with our monthly happy hour at Grill on the Green in Ironwood and was another great success.
Patty Cummins, Community Action Chair, organized the Branch project to support Meals to Grow, a program of Matthew’s Crossing Food Bank. The program provides weekend backpacks for school-age children and their families. Approximately 1,400 backpacks are distributed each week, year round, in our community.
SEV members always come through with amazing support for our community. Patty reported that in spite of the 113° temperature, we raised $400 in cash donations and filled three large Matthews Crossing donation boxes (see photo) with a wide variety of food.
Thank you to Grill on the Green’s Food & Beverage Manager, Karla Ellis. Karla was so helpful organizing space for the event along with overnight storage of the donations until Matthews Crossing’s Friday pick up.
A special thank you to all SEV members who generously donated to this very worthy community program.
Karla Ellis (left) and Patty Cummins filled three donation boxes with a variety of food for Matthews Crossing Food Bank.
Mardi Gras Fundraiser
Our annual Scholarship Fundraiser was a great success!
Thanks to all of you for your support and participation.
Our Mardi Gras event was attended by 185 people. They were entertained with the music provided by the Hamilton High School Maroon Jazz. Justina Burks spoke about the importance of the collaboration between Chandler Gilbert Community College and AAUW. Guests enjoyed the specialty drinks, and the room was filled with lively chatter.
There were 21 raffle baskets, 17 silent auction baskets, and a 25/75% cash raffle. Almost $12,000 dollars was raised!
Many young women will benefit from our AAUW SEV efforts.
Holiday Funds Luncheon – December 2024
Our December Red Envelope Fundraising Brunch was another successful event. A Big Thank You to the planning committee of Susan Bliss, Karen Bliss, and Beth Zdeblick. Thanks to Sharon Gale for allowing us to raffle her wonderful centerpieces and to Barb Moser for donating the raffle baskets for the San Marcos teacher manuals.
As part of the event, we honored the AAUW SEV Branch past presidents. We thank these women for sharing their talents and time with our branch. We appreciate each of you!
This Fall we raised enough money to provide San Marcos Elementary School with 11 teacher reading manuals.
San Marcos now owns eleven teacher manuals to support their reading curriculum! Carey Paulo, the reading specialist at San Marcos, shared the amazing news with the teachers, her principal, and even the office staff. To quote Carey, “We appreciate all of you at the Southeast Valley Branch of AAUW, and your efforts to raise the money for our teachers and students. You are amazing!”
The UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) manuals will provide the San Marcos teachers with lesson plans, assessment profiles, center activities, apps, and decodable passages. So . . . not only do the teachers benefit and thank us, but most importantly, so do the students.