Ladies gather to help fund 2 local organizations

Friday, March 8, was International Women’s Day.

The Community Foundation and 100 Women Who Care of West Tennessee partnered together to properly mark the occasion by awarding a couple of grants from their partnership on that day.

The 100 Women organization began in 2019 as an organization in which 100 women would give $100 every three months so that four times a year, they could gather and give $10,000 to different charitable organizations in the area.

The pandemic and other happenings caused the meetings to go on hiatus for a few years until Linda Rizzuto wanted to bring the organization back last year. This time, however, it’s back in partnership with the Foundation.

The group gave a pair of grants out on Friday - $10,000 to a larger group and $5,000 to a smaller one.

The winning organizations were All Saints Anglican Church’s Diaper Bank receiving the $10,000 and A Step Ahead of West Tennessee receiving the $5,000.

Three large and small organizations each gave a presentation for the women to vote on who to give to out of the three in each category, and the voting was apparently close as the Foundation members in charge of vote tallying took multiple counts to ensure correct numbers were counted.

Olivia Abernathy was the representative for All Saints.

“We’re really appreciative because there are a lot of families in our area that are struggling, and they have infants and toddlers still in diapers,” Abernathy said. “And diapers is a significant expense for most families, and some families are having to choose between buying food or buying diapers.

“And we at All Saints wanted to provide a resource for those families so they could be able to go at least a month without having to worry about that expense and focus on other expenses.”

The diaper bank is open one time a month, and families can log on to All Saints’ website to register for the monthly pickup and then come by the church on McClellan Road to pick up their allotment.

A Step Ahead is an organization that’s nearly a decade old that focuses on helping young mothers get the resources they need to put themselves in position to get a quality education.

The organization’s new director, La’Tonya Woods, was glad to be able to receive the grant.

“One of the primary services we provide is laptops for young women and mothers who graduate high school or get their GED and move on to college,” Woods said. “Because getting an education now is difficult without your own computer, so our goal is to provide that to allow as many young women as we can the chance to get an education without having to pay that immediate out-of-pocket expense for the computer.”

The women who are part of the program attend classes and take part in community service projects before they receive their laptop.

Hayley Fortune with the Foundation said the organization is glad to partner with 100 Women in awarding the grants.

“Especially today because it’s International Women’s Day, and we’ve got organizations led by women being helped out by other women,” Fortune said. “So we hope to make this an annual event on International Women’s Day.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news