Every year the need grows but the JWL met a record amount of need this year, matching 707 children with sponsors. With specific wish lists for every child, sponsors shopped for the gifts every child wanted, provided sweet treats and personal care items, and carefully wrapped and provided for a wonderful Christmas morning. While some schools and districts received their packages directly, both Huntington and South Huntington school districts were distributed through a centralized location with the support of Huntington Assembly of God. 466 children and their holiday packages were distributed through the Assembly of God meeting space (thank you Assembly of God for your amazing support!) on December 19th with JWL members and volunteers, and SCPD Officer Delgado all helping out throughout the day!

Many of our JWL members met to enjoy time together, celebrate the achievements of the past year, and look forward to the coming year with our annual 2022 Holiday Dinner at Buenos Aires in Huntington Village!

To celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of the Junior Welfare League of Huntington, JWL members, volunteers, and children marched in the annual Huntington Holiday Parade on November 26th.

JWL members and volunteers helped hand out water to over 2,000 runners in the annual Thanks4Giving Townwide Fund run on Thanksgiving morning!

The Junior Welfare League kicked off its annual Holiday Charities program at the October meeting with a goal of providing over 600 local children in need with holiday packages of gifts and care items, all from individual wish lists created by the children. Interested in getting involved? We welcome all!

We have successfully committed to providing hundreds of children with thoughtful and special holiday gift packages created with love, along the lines of their individual wish list requests. This unique approach is a huge undertaking but we have managed to provide the exact presents that children request to an increasing number of local children every year. Last year we provided over 600 local children in need with exactly what they asked for… but only because of your help.

What Does It Look Like to Sponsor A Child?

You can take one, or many, or even request a whole family. Have a local office that wants to get involved? Ask us how you can coordinate a giving tree to get everyone involved in buying presents for a family or two!
The requirement (per child)—and yes, you can always do more:

•  $40 – $45 in wrapped gifts to the child, labeled “From Santa” with the Family # (the name, age, gender of the child, family #, and any specified requests for toys or needs will be provided to you)
•  1 or more non-perishable fun food items or any sort of “treat”
•  1 or more personal care items, as these are not covered by food stamps

Get Involved

Want to get involved? If you have a JWL member you are already connected to, simply reach out and let them know how many children you would like to sponsor. If you do not currently have a contact here, now you do! Just email [email protected] and we’ll get you on the list to sponsor as many children as you would like.
Requests must be in by November 1, 2022.

JWL President Andrea Boccard, JJWL Chair Genoeffa Brady, and JWL Secretary & VP of Membership Liz Leeds attended the Townwide Fund‘s Annual 2022 Harvest Night on September 29th to accept a $3,000 grant benefitting the Charitable Children’s Fund.

The Townwide Fund of Huntington awarded its highest-ever amount of grants this season, supporting non-profit organization programs throughout the Town of Huntington with over $181,000 in grants. The $3,000 awarded to our Charitable Children Fund will have a tremendous impact on children throughout the Township.

About the Charitable Children Fund:

Charitable Children Fund was recently established as an outgrowth of one of the League’s initial core programs, the Lift Fund.  The Charitable Children Fund is a junior and more informal version of our Lift Fund but still provides necessary and immediate small-scale resources to a child or teen in time of need.

Typical applicants are children from low-income families. Charitable Children Fund requests may range from a 8-year-old needing a new pair of eyeglasses to a high school senior requesting a tux rental in order to attend his prom, to a teen seeking help with co-pays for psychiatric health services.

September 20, 2022 – JWL Meeting Minutes 

Date: Sept 20, 2022

Location: Vandegrift Plastic Surgery 

Attendees:   

Andrea Boccard, Adria Dodge, Kathy Terry, Corey Lein, Liz Leeds, Leslie Levchuck, Jen Brady, Meri Vandegrift, Christie Halbesen, Christine Blaine, Christina Trudden, Mita Parikh, Trish Boland, Nicole Rainone, Jamie Brennan, Olivia Buzzetta, Barbara Pawar, Adriana Herrera, Sara Murphy, Caroline DeDora 

Next Meeting:  Thursday, Oct 20, 2022 

Announcements: 

• New JWL members – sign up at www.jwlhungtington.org or via email at [email protected] and send a check to Box 107 Huntington, NY 11743 
• Existing JWL members:  Renew your annual membership renewal at www.jwlhungtington.org or send a check to Box 107 Huntington, NY 11743 
• Shop Amazon through https://smile.amazon.com/ and change your charity to Junior Welfare League of Huntington Inc 

Discussion: 

Welcome & Introductions  

President’s Report – Andrea Boccard:  

• New Website for 2022: www.jwlhungtington.org  The new website modernizes our communications. Check it out! 
• Mission to grow JWL membership with engaged and excited members to drive the mission of JWL into the future.   
• The goal to continue to improve community connections to increase our local impact and expand our programs

Secretary/Membership Update – Liz Leeds: 

• Membership renewal each year in October.  If you signed up and paid at the luncheon, this counts toward the 2022/2023 Season 
• $100 Active Membership with the goal to serve in 2 Committees per year 
• $350 Friend of the League with the goal to participate financially in the League without obligation to participate in committees 

Treasurer Report – Kathy Terry: 

• $70K in the account, inclusive of camp costs.   
• Backpacks Program broke even  
• Camp has a $35K balance from 2022 Summer thus far 
• Please add Junior Welfare League of Huntington Inc as your Amazon Smile charity–even $20 a month supports our work! 

Communications Update – Core Lein: 

• Goal to promote the League on social media to improve visibility of the services being offered and increase JWL membership and support 
• Friend Corey on Facebook so she can tag you in JWL social meeting posts and communications to improve the reach of the post.  You can also tag yourself or share these posts to your network 
• Idea to have Member Spotlights on our social media pages to show who we are, why we chose to be involved and personalize the conversation with our community 
• Idea to have name tags at meetings so our JWL members can more easily get to know each other 

JJWL Update – Jen Brady: 

• JJWL 2022-2023 projects have officially kicked off!  

• Backpack Stuffing day brought ~12 or so JJWL and super JJWL girls to Andrea’s house and stuffed over 200 
• Pickle Festival had lots of participation and all the girls wore their JJWL hats and had a ton of fun selling popcorn and pickles to support the Greenlawn Centerport Historical Association 
• Next up: 9/11 Heroes Run at Milldam on Saturday, Sept 24^th! 
• Nearing 35-40 active members (routinely get approx 8-12 volunteers per project) 
• Aiming for 1-2 projects per month (with 2-4 volunteer service hours per project) 
• ALL Member children always welcome at JJWL events 
• Actively seeking JWL members for support of JJWL. Support includes: 
  • Helping out at any individual JJWL project (we can always use an extra set of adult hands to oversee kids) 
  • Administrative Support – Can’t be on site? No problem – We can REALLY use help tracking hours and issuing statements for JJWL girls to submit to their schools/honor society upon completion of hours 
  • Planning / Project Development – We need to plan JJWL volunteer projects 1-2 a month through June – We’ve got October covered but could use help reaching out / coming up with ideas for future projects (got a local organization near and dear to you that could use volunteers? That’s a great way to find a project for the girls!) 
  • Finally – love it all and want to be involved in everything? Actively seeking an Assistant Chair or Co-Chair to help run the JJWL alongside Gen Brady! 

Backpacks for Success Program Chair Report: 

• Hit record numbers again this year, stuffing/providing ~240 backpacks for local children 
• Requests/lists were later than ever, resulting in some challenges for ordering supplies but we managed to fulfill all the needs plus last minute support requests 
• Nearly fully funded by two active sponsorships – Local non-profit organization Hockey Helps provided $5,000 for supplies and locally owned and operated W Services (national commercial cleaning company) sponsored the cost of all the backpacks for the 4^th year in a row! 

Grants Chair Report: 

• Hockey Helps is providing two grants this year – one for backpacks and the other for camp, doubling their support this year for our programs 
• The Townwide Fund will give their annual grant, supporting Charitable Children, at their Harvest Night on Sept 29^th at Murray Hall (St. Patrick’s Church basement). Andrea Boccard, Gen Brady and Liz Leeds will attend to accept the grant 
• Past president and New Grants Chair Leslie Levchuck is actively seeking new grant opportunities, following our fundraising trend of relying more heavily on grants and sponsorships than small individual donations. If members know of grant opportunities (work programs, sponsoring companies, etc) please connect with Leslie! 

Lift Fund Update: 

• The Lift Fund is an area of focus for this year as requests for Lifts have continued to decrease in recent years 
• Lift fund Chair Adria Dodge actively seeking member(s) to support with outreach to social workers/representatives to increase awareness of program and develop connections and relationships 

Holiday Charities: 

• Ready, set, go! Holiday Charities is quickly approaching. Adria going to start reaching out to schools to get them on task with creating their student lists. 
• Members should begin reaching out to their networks and getting a rough idea of how many children they’d like to take on. Plan to have your rough number around the end of October/early November (the sooner the better – don’t worry, nothing is set in stone!) 

Committees: 

JWL members are asked to be involved in at least one program or committee. Programs are typically specific times/events of the year (aka, backpacks for success or camp for kids) and committees can be year-round or seasonal. Please consider what you would like to get involved with if you’re not already involved in something! We will send a sign-up out before the October membership meeting to get organized 

• Fundraising/Development 
  • This will *hopefully* be a committee of several or more members, working alongside the Grants Chair as well as the board with planning ideas for fundraising opportunities, identifying possible sponsorships, grants, etc.  

• Community Outreach 
  • This committee will likely work with the Lift Fund, Camp for Kids and Holiday Charities to support awareness of our programs, create relationships with school social workers and staff, and connect with other non-profits (I.e., like how we work with FSL, Helping Hand, etc for Backpacks for Success) 

• JJWL 
  • As noted above, there are a lot of opportunities to get involved with the JJWL, whether you want to roll up your sleeves and get involved in projects or help with administrative tasks in your free time at home. 

• Spring Luncheon 
  • The cornerstone event of our year, this is a many hands committee – from managing the location details to raffles to guest lists and tables and vendors for the boutique. Planning starts in the Fall and goes through April. We typically have 150+ attendees at the luncheon. 

• Other Events 
  • This event committee will be an offshoot of the spring luncheon event and fundraising, looking for possible fall/summer event opportunities (possibly smaller/more intimate) and/or focused on membership drives and community engagement (I.e., not always fundraising focused).