2025 Holiday Funds Luncheon
The annual Holiday Funds Luncheon was held on December 13, 2025. Laura Wilkinson Sinton was the guest speaker. She was awarded the AAUW Career Development Grant, which allowed her to return to school and earn a Master’s Degree in Sustainability Leadership from Arizona State University. She is a great example of how AAUW supports women and the impact this type of support can foster. Laura shared impactful information about how we can make a difference in the health of our shared planet.
Members enjoyed hearing our speaker, socializing, and a delicious luncheon. Not to mention, funds were raised to support the work of AAUW! Remember: Funds raised were matched by AAUW National.
August Happy Hour
Our members enjoyed the August happy hour at Ironwood’s Grill on the Green. Branch happy hours are held the third Thursday of each month, 4:30-6:00 pm at Ironwood’s Grill on the Green. Members and anyone interested in joining AAUW are invited to join us.
Amazon Wishlist for San Marcos Students Was a Huge Success!
Dr. Henderson, San Marcos principal, was stunned at the generosity of our branch! Although there were only four Amazon Prime days on which to order items, she received many of the products on the Wishlist. All these items will be used to reward positive student behavior throughout the school year. She thanks our branch from the bottom of her heart!
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.
In the Fall of 2024, 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.
Period Packing 2024
The Southeast Valley Branch of AAUW is an active group of women who hold monthly meetings October through April each year. Most meetings include a guest speaker providing information about topics that impact the lives of women in our community. The picture above is from our Period Packing event where we packed 200 period packs for students at 6 schools within the Chandler Unified School District. Click the following links for a meeting schedule and past events.
We host several events throughout the year including a holiday luncheon, our annual fundraiser to support our local scholarship program, service project events, and a visit to the Arizona capital for Legislative Day.
The picture above with Arizona Governor Hobbs is from Legislative Day 2023.