Category «District Three»

“Pete the Cat” Literacy Day

“Pete the Cat” Literacy Day: Happy House Daycare- a non-profit childcare center for the “working poor”. At Happy House Daycare, focus was on 30 newly located 3-4 year olds. As children progress from the “toddler” building to “big school” literacy is paramount from day one. Being read to by Altrusa volunteers increases vocabulary as well as promoting classroom behavior skills. Prior to the event, Altrusans cut out all the pieces to create a paper rendition of Pete. Altrusans assisted with a hands-on reinforcement of the story “Pete the Cat” by helping the children in gluing and placing Pete’s body parts on their project page, then choosing a “shoe color” for Pete to wear, that color name was then spelled out on their papers. Copies of the book “Pete the Cat” were given to each student and copies for each classroom. Literacy is paramount in Happy House from birth through Pre-k and afterschool programs.

Transforming Middle School Transitions

Transitioning from elementary to middle school can be terrifying. Creating a baseline of communication skills, self-dependence and organization at this age leads to better life-long learning success. Altrusa of Lake City created two events to transform these scary times into fun and educational half-day extravaganzas: Red Carpet Event and Girls’ Summit. “Red Carpet Event” provides a time to see the campus and meet peers prior to the first day of fall classes. Altrusa sponsors the event financially and coordinates and leads the breakout sessions- to reinforce the school’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program and included: Human Hungry Hippos, Slime Lab, School safety/Social Media presentation. The event ended with lunch. The Girls Summit event is to build leadership skills among young women by providing information and education concerning issues they encounter in their daily lives, through Art Painting Projects, Self Defense and Table Manners/Etiquette session with hands on preparation of their meal. Our most vulnerable young ladies have difficulty transitioning from elementary school to middle school. By creating fun and interactive events, these changes can be less scary and give them the chance to see they are not alone in their quest for fitting in. Transforming the transition process!

Pets, Prose, and Pickers: A musical and storytelling event to benefit local pet organizations.

Partnering with Covenant Pet Trust and Lake City Humane Society we used the interwoven love of pets, literacy and music, to invite Sean Dietrich to headline the community-wide free event featuring SongFarmers as musical entertainment. The community continues to benefit reading his weekly column in our newspaper. . We provided an uplifting and encouraging community event at no cost to local attendees. (Sean, a high school dropout, and 11-year community college graduate, with a tragic family history, uses his stories about growing up in the south to connect with readers and listeners of all ages. He embodies the spirit of literacy, resourcefulness and family that Altrusa strives to promote. He also LOVES his fur babies.) He told stories at our joint luncheon with Rotary as well as the evening community wide event. The SongFarmers is a group of local blue grass style musicians who meet regularly with local learning musicians to share their craft with the next generation. Nationally known picker, Skip Johns heads the group and to put he and Sean together with some of these eager to learn musicians was a natural progression. Donations of food and money were given to CPT and LCHS.

Making a Difference with Menstrual and Personal Hygiene Products

Period poverty is a problem all over the world, including our own communities. Being a local builder of women, Altrusa saw this project as a way to decrease stigma and uplift our school nurses and their students. The Homeless Education Department was also included through stocking their anonymous closet.
Community partners such as PTOs, the Sherrifs Department and online contributors gave all kinds of personal hygiene products to this campaign. At the program meeting, club members brought all their personal donations; small personal bags by the hundreds were brought from home or purchased – think Ipsy or small make-up bags. Boxes of tampons, individually wrapped sanitary pads in all sizes, and individually wrapped feminine wipes were all divided up. There was an assembly line formation for members to package a variety for distribution. Each package contained age appropriate feminine hygiene items.

Leesburg Police Department National Night Out

The Lake County Altrusa Club has participated in our community’s National Night Out by giving away free books to attendees. The club collected books for all ages from members and received a donation of books from the Friends of the Leesburg Library. Our Literacy committee also purchased books. We were thrilled to hand out more than 750 books that evening, nearly double what we gave away the previous year. Our Domestic Violence committee also participates by giving away pencils and bookmarks with the Hotline.

United Cerebal Palsy BETA Christmas Store

United Cerebal Palsy has a campus which offers classrooms and day care for young mothers and pregnant girls the opportunity to continue with their education. As an incentive for the girls a Christmas store is created with donations from individuals and organizations which our club is a contributor in having items for the girls to purchase with incentive points. Our club members also helped setting up the store and on the day of the girls shopping our club members were the gift wrapping dept. making this a very fun time in meeting the young ladies and making this very special event for them..

Center for Independent Silent Night event

Center for Indepentent Living holds a special event for children or family’s with deaf members of the family in which a visit from Santa and activities are planned. This event is called Silent Night… The club volunteered to have a craft table for the children as an activity in creating a Christmas tree decoration for each child to take away. A very special hands on activity our club enjoyed being a part of..

Holiday luncheon with STEPS residents.

Our club has traditionally held a luncheon with our special guests the ladies of STEPS. Specialized Treatment Education and Prevention Services. Our luncheon gives the ladies a day trip to a luncheon and an afternoon of activity to meet the ladies and gifts of tote bags for each lady is shared and gifts to any children visiting their mother on this special luncheon.

Operation Homefront Thanksgiving meals and stocking stuffing for military families

Our club participates in collecting items from Dollar Tree stores and the collections are sorted and stockings are stuffed for giving to Military families at a special event on military bases in Florida. A collection of gift cards by our club is also given to provide Thanksgiving baskets..

Ronald McDonald House meals

Our club volunteered to provide pre-prepared lasagna dinners and Halloween snacks and snacks for hospital visits for families staying at the Ronald McDonald house in the Lake Nona area near to Nemours Children’s Hospital in October.