BY CHARIS MCGRADY

I had a slight pang of anxiety when I first heard about the New Members project. I looked around the room at all the women I had just met, their incredible backgrounds, their ambition and their confidence. I thought “this is going to be chaos.” We’ve got 30 aspiring leaders in the room. The expression “too many cooks spoil the broth” came to mind…. “We are never going to get this done,” I said to myself. I should have had more faith.

I’m not going to lie, there was a bit of initial chaos; with everyone coming up with great ideas. But looking back on that now; it was part of the process – embracing the creativity and trusting each other. We came out of our second new member training meeting with three volunteer leaders and a project to help teachers at a local Title 1 elementary school get the supplies they needed to enhance the learning experience for economically disadvantaged children. The project leaders were fabulous. They brought us together with organization and clear action goals. My mindset shifted to “30 ambitious talented aspiring leaders – we’re going to smash this out of the park.”

We did set our ambitions too high and had to be reined back in! We were planning to take over the world. We wanted to do the best we could. We wanted to exceed expectations but mostly we wanted to give back to our community and make fabulous friendships along the way. And that is what we did.

The School Supplies for Success campaign was born in February. We had 10 teachers who had each submitted a list of supplies they needed. The 168 items were all listed on an Amazon wishlist. The items ranged in value from $5 to $40 including markers, stickers, headphones and many more. The JLA Communications team helped us with a social media post we could push out to JLA members, friends, and family asking them to purchase an item of their choice. We posted the campaign on March 17th, and we were off. We had until April 19th to receive all the supplies, allocate them to teachers, pack them all up, and distribute them to the schools.  

For me, the highlight was the packaging party on April 21st, hosted by Leigh-Ann who had been receiving Amazon packages for weeks now.  There was a real spirit of camaraderie, laughter, friendship, and collaboration. There was also Prosecco and Pastries! 

We collected all but 15 of the items – a total value of supplies of  $2,499.52 – thanks to the generosity of members, family, and friends. The supplies were delivered to the teachers on April 23rd. The smiles said it all.  

We had done it but there was one more very important thing to do…..

We had a great  brunch on a beautiful rooftop bar in Annapolis on Sunday to celebrate completing the project, the friendships, and connections we made and fun we had along the way. As Sandra Day O’Connor (Junior League of Phoenix) said, “We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone… and whatever happens is the result of […] all the weaving of individual threads from one to another that creates something.”

About the Junior League of Annapolis:
Junior League of Annapolis, Inc. is an organization of women whose mission is to advance women’s leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration, and training. It reaches out to all women of any race, religion, or national origin who demonstrate an interest in and a commitment to voluntarism.https://www.jlannapolis.org

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