Young women are taking initiative in trying to better our community by starting our very own Juniorette’s Club.
“The Juniorettes Club is the very first in all of Wake Forest,” Career Development Coordinator Susan Tyson said.
Being a sister club of the Wake Forest Woman’s club, the members have several different goals.
Education being of high value to the members of the Juniorettes Club, the club members drop books off at local laundromats in order to encourage literacy for all ages, not just children. Families with young children may spend several hours a week washing clothes and club members wanted to encourage reading for adults and children.
President Patricia Henn and Vice President Angela Clayborne, seniors, both agree that the best part of volunteering is seeing the smile on someone’s face.
“It gives me a warm feeling inside,” Clayborne said.
Having received their volunteering start from previous experiences, both Clayborne and Henn felt the need to better their school environment, along with their community. Along with helping to encourage literacy, the girls made chew toys for local animal shelters out of shredded T-shirts. The toys help keep shelter dogs occupied during times when they lack human interaction.
“Such small a thing can go such a long way,” Henn said.
Each meeting, on the first Thursday of every month, is set to make a difference.
The Juniorettes have taken on several more charity events, such as Breakfast with Santa, Backpack Buddies and a Crop Walk fund raiser for the hungry.
Before spring break, all classrooms in the school will compete to collect enough nonperishable food and drink items for the Wake Forest Elementary Backpack Buddies program. The Backpack Buddies program helps elementary students that go home after school without any food to eat in the evenings or on the weekends.
Although they have not yet begun the Backpack Buddies program, the Juniorettes recently participated in Breakfast with Santa located at The Mill Room.
The event is for families in need. The members helped pass out food to families and clean up all the plates afterwards. Children got to see Santa, and families participated in a raffle. All the money that went towards the raffle went to a scholarship that a lucky senior at our school could win.
Henn said, “My favorite part was getting to meet people and seeing all the kids get so excited about Santa. It was definitely a lot of fun.”