On the Town: League members adopt tradition and honor three of their own
For the first time, Assistance League of Glendale has given the Ada Edwards Laughlin Award to three members.
Laughlin, along with Anne Banning, founded the national organization of Assistance League in 1935 to promote the growth of effective volunteerism through leadership training and education.
The award has been a tradition with the national Assistance League since 1980, and now the Glendale chapter has adopted the practice.
The first recipients are Ann Wilson, Sylvia Kowal and Pearl Wells.
Wilson has been an active member for more than 20 years. She has served as treasurer of the Thrift Alley second-hand shop and as building chair.
For years, she handled all the transportation planning for Festival of Trees — from hiring the moving company and workers and supervising the loading and unloading of the trucks to renting a truck and enlisting family and friends to help cut expenses.
Wilson was the first assistant treasurer, a position she continues to hold today, and has had to make lots of trips to the post office and bank.
She has been a guiding force for the vocational training program, in which she helps clients from Tierra del Sol gain work experience in the thrift shop.
Wilson has also served as liaison to the Las Caritas auxiliary of Assistance League, making long-lasting friendships.
Kowal runs the Thrift Alley and coordinates its annual Christmas in July sale, which is coming up July 27, 28 and 29. She also provides calligraphy for name tags, banners, program covers and other artistic endeavors.
She organizes the league’s teas and other special parties, and all the chairwomen go to her for suggestions on making their events special.
Wells has been a member for 24 years and has held several leadership positions. She is known for her organizational skills, attention to detail, photography and archival record-keeping.
Those attributes are especially necessary for maintaining the Festival of Trees mailing list, photographing that event and others and keeping a detailed archival quality president’s book.
These three members’ names will be engraved on a plaque to hang in the clubhouse at 314 E. Harvard St., where the thrift store is also located.
Assistance League also recently presented seven $1,000 scholarships to local students. Five scholarships went to graduating seniors from high schools in the Glendale Unified School District and two were given to Glendale Community College students.
Receiving high school scholarships were Eunice Ramilo, Clark Magnet High School; Kristen Laulette, Glendale High School; Emily Wang, Hoover High School; Tatiana Davudyan, Daily High School; and Paige Kenyon, Crescenta Valley High School.
Glendale Community College students receiving scholarships were Arlet Markarian and Kristen Dermenjian.
Tamara Hughes, scholarships chair, coordinated teams made up of three members each to visit the schools to interview the student candidates.
This has been an annual project of the organization since 1962.
Lions Club presents scholarships to special needs students
The Northwest Glendale Lions Club recently awarded scholarships of $1,000 each to two Glendale Community College students with special needs.
Chairman Ted Walters made the presentations to Ricshaun Elliott and Parmis Mirshahidi.
Elliott is studying engineering and plans to transfer to UC Irvine. He has a 3.0 grade-point average and has gained an engineering certificate from Glendale Community College. He is a member of the college’s Hispanic Professional Engineers organization and the Capson Project for independent research.
Mirshahidi has a 4.0 grade-point average and aspires to go to UCLA Medical School and become a pediatrician. She works as a lab assistant and is a member of both the Alpha Gamma Honor Society and the pre-med club.
The two 2017 scholarships bring the total to $89,000 to 86 students in the 29-year history of the program, which was initiated in 1987 with a $500 donation from then club President Richard Sevigny.
JOYCE RUDOLPH can be reached at rudolphjoyce10@gmail.com.