Surf City Soroptimists of Huntington Beach and the 4 Pillars

This past year, Soroptimists of Huntington Beach focused on Soroptimist International of the Americas’ 4 Pillars: Fundraising, Membership, Program and Public Awareness.  Despite Covid-19, here are our goals and accomplishments:

Programs
Goal
:  Strongly encouraged to participate in SIA’s Dream Programs:  LYD, is an Education & Award for Women and Dream It, Be It, career support for teen girls who face obstacles to success.
AchievementLYD…we awarded 12 deserving women, who are heads of household and attending school with a total of $18,500.  Our club was part of the collaborative that received 99 applications.  As our goal was to give the award to 12 women, we were given enough applications from which to choose.   (not this year).  The program meeting in February, was dedicated solely to the LYD program.  A few of our guests were past awardees from our club and other clubs, who shared with the attendees how the award and the support from Soroptimist impacted their lives.  Over 100 people attended this meeting including families of the honorees, college counselors, members from other clubs, sponsors and friends of members.  One of our guests donated $1,500 during this meeting to support our program.  DIBI….in the summer, when most clubs go dark, our club presented the program to 6 teenage girls at Olive Crest Transitional Housing.  These foster youths will not be reunited with their families.  We also delivered this program, in partnership with SI Newport Harbor, to female students at Back Bay High School in the fall.  As a club, we invested 152.5 hours in mentoring the girls.  SIHB’s programs also includes the Stop Human Trafficking committee, the Dolly Wakeham Memorial Grant, Dream Beyond (going beyond the cash award) and scholarships to single women, head of households in the three community colleges we support. Through these programs and our relationship with Project Self-Sufficiency, The Assistance League of Huntington Beach and the CARE Programs at Coastline Community College, Golden West College and Orange Coast College, we were able to reach out to many women who needed our help.

 Membership
Goal
:  To have a net change in membership of not more than -1%. 
Achievement: Our club started the year with 43 members and obtained one member immediately after our Wine Tasting fundraiser, bringing our total membership to 44, a growth of 2%.  These members contributed to our club by being part of the board and joining one of our 18 committees. We continue to keep a list of prospects, as non-members attend our events and are interested in joining.  The current list of prospects is 16. 

Fundraising
Goal
:  To focus on fundraising events that will help to maximize the number of women and girls that we serve. 
Achievement:  Through various events such as Wine Tasting, Bunco’s, Paint Night and the Holiday Fundraiser as well as donations and grants made by many of our generous members and members in our community such as AES and Walmart, we raised approximately $40,500 to fund our programs.  That’s 5% more than we raised the previous year. 

Public Awareness
Goal
:  To increase recognition in the community
Achievement:  Our website, soroptimisthuntingtonbeach.org includes information about our club, our meetings, events and a blog.  We also have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram account and a Twitter page. We have a strong with the Assistance League of Huntington Beach, who help  us promote our club and host our Day of Empowerment.  We reached out to community members for grants.  For the third year in a row, we received a badge from Great Non-Profits as people gave testimonials about our club.  AES and Walmart continue to be two of our major donors.  Through our various fundraisers and our activity on social media, we continue to raise awareness about SI Huntington Beach.  We were a featured nonprofit on HB Channel 3 News with Matt Liffreing regarding our Day of Empowerment.  Mary Chiappetta, who chairs our Stop Human Trafficking committee did a podcast, in which she promoted SIHB and our community involvement.

Submitted by President, Marcelle Capps

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