May 30: (L-R) Jan Imonti, Area D VP; Bev York, 1st VP Palomar District and Chair, Domestic Violence Awareness project and BWC ; Arlene Rutherford, President, Bonsall Woman’s Club; Rosalia Zamora, President, Palomar District. “Sorting, Counting, Packing”.
The purses and personal items were collected from the clubs in CFWC Palomar District from November 2018 to June 2019 as our contribution to the GFWC Signature Project for Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention, “The PURSE Project”. P=Purses; U=Uniting; R=Resources to; S=Successfully; E=End Violence Against Women.
These donations were made in response to appeals at monthly club meetings, in club and district newsletters and by word of mouth, and ranged from new and almost-new purses to soap to Kleenex to shampoo to personal grooming aids to hair care helps to notepads and pens — members used their imagination to contribute a wide variety of items to women who escaped from abusive home situations with little more than the clothes they were wearing.
As a result, 31 purses and the items to fill them were delivered to Women’s Resource Center in Oceanside June 11. In addition, we were able to donate 17 purses and items to fill them to the Alabaster Jar Project in Escondido, which rehabilitates and empowers victims of human trafficking, and small stuffed toys were collected and donated to the Escondido Police Dept for the children of Domestic Violence victims.
June 11: (L-R) Bev York; Brittney Romine, Director of Residential Services, Women’s Resource Center, Oceanside; Jan Imonti. “Delivery Day to WRC”Dept. for children of domestic violence victims.
This has been a truly rewarding project for all of us who have taken part over the past several months. The Collect asks us to “be large in thought, in word, in deed“, to be “always generous” and “to put into action our better impulses“. For Palomar District members, those are not simply words, but the words we live by.