What is Altrusa
Altrusa is an international service organization dedicated to improving communities worldwide. With almost 10,000 members, Altrusa has 361 clubs in ten countries. Members work on promoting literacy and identifying and solving community problems through original projects and by partnering with other organizations or agencies.
Altrusa International of Rochester, Inc. was chartered as a club in 1950, thirty-two years after Mamie L. Bass founded the first club in Indianapolis. Mamie is famous for saying women should not just be good, they should be good for something! The most well-known Altrusan was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Altrusa of Rochester News
Altrusa Annual April Shower
Four years ago we invited Bill and Joanne Cala of Joining Hearts and Hands to present an update on their work building schools in Kenya. We have partnered with them to both build an entire classroom and fund two scholarships for girls to attend high school. The idea to invite guests beyond the club membership spurred the search for a large enough facility and a means of serving a simple catered supper. Thus was our first April Shower born.
The second year we were aware of the need of families who must raise children whose parents have been incarcerated or killed. The Catholic Family Charities group sponsored support for them, known as Kinship Care and were in desperate need of all those wonderful items that any baby shower bestows on an expectant mother. Members and guests filled the Christ Church community room once again, this time with blankets, diapers, outfits and so much more.
Our third year we invited our guests to bring pampering toiletry items and such which we all assembled into shower caddy baskets to be presented to women arriving at Jennifer House, a post-prison outreach ministry of Spiritus Christi.
Last year our attention was focused on the libraries at both School 24 and the Rochester International Academy. At RIA immigrant children from grades two to twelve arrive in hopes of learning English while simultaneously learning New York State Regents curriculum for their age level, whether they could read at that level or not. Many wonderful books were purchased and donated to both libraries.
This year we were thrilled to partner with Maggie Harris of the Community Lutheran Ministry on Joseph Avenue. Maggie runs after-school programs and summer camps, helping keep up to 200 children off the streets and engaged in safe learning situations. We filled the room with aproximately 50 invited guests and members who brought many items on Maggie's Summer Camp Wish List. Joining Maggie, was Kate Stilz, President of the Board of Directors (board member for 10 years and volunteers as the cook) and Azzure McFadden, nine years old and a summer camp participant. The April 9th event was held at Christ Church, with a light supper, camaraderie, and a chance to further our causes through the Chinese raffle. The money raised in the Chinese raffle was donated to Maggie's Summer Camp program. Please see "Maggie's Summer Camp Wish List" for anyone wishing to support the Summer Camp program.
Altrusa Annual Scholarship
Each year Altrusa of Rochester awards a scholarship to a young woman graduating from high school and who will be furthering her education. We will be awarding 2 scholarships this year, Emily Eden and Sarita Rai will be our 2014 Scholarship recipients. Both Emily and Sarita will be pursuing their Nursing education at Monroe Community College. We would like to thank Julianne Wise, RIA, and Dellenna Harper, Jennifer House, for submitting such wonderful candidates for our 2014 scholarship.
In 2013, our scholarship was awarded to Crystal Colon from East High School. Crystal graduated at the head of her class and was the first Latina in East High School history to be Valedictorian. Crystal is attending University of Rochester majoring in Economics. Please read the YNN article.
Altrusa in the News
Democrat and Chronicle
The Altrusa of Rochester club was recently featured in an article written by Lisa Tiffin. This article was in the Saturday, June 5th Democrat and Chronicle ROCNews section. Please take a few minutes to read the article.
Suburban News
Terra Osterling, Suburban News (weekly local west side newspaper), recently contacted Alrusa members living on the west side of Rochester for an interview about our group. Terra met with the members and learned of our many community projects that support literacy and women in transition. Enjoy reading the Suburban News article.
Altrusa of Rochester Welcomes New Members
As a result of the two wonderful articles in the local newspapers in the summer of 2013 our club received many inquiries to learn more about our service projects and how to join our club. We hosted a Sunday afternoon gathering inviting those who inquired about our club. Many of our club members shared their personal interests, their experience as an Altrusan and information about our many projects.
We are very happy to welcome several new members who joined our club to help carry forth our mission. Pictured with our Club President, Debby and our Past District Governor, Sandi are several of our new members. From left to right top, Sandi, Pat, Judi, Julie, Judy, Kathy, Carol, Debby and bottom Diane, Dellenna and Tracy.
Altrusa Events
Rochester Children's Book Festival
In the Fall of 2013, Altrusa completed its ninth year participating in the Rochester Children's Book Festival. This wonderful festival brought many of our local children book authors to one location. There were craft and reading rooms, workshops by authors on the craft of writing every half hour and many community groups' tables to visit.
The 18th Annual Rochester Children's Book Festival will be on Saturday, November 15th, 2014, in the Flynn Campus Center at Monroe Community College. If you have not attended this wonderful event please plan to do so this coming Fall. Please stop to visit our Altrusa of Rochester table and learn of our many community events.
Festival to Go
Eighteen of the invited authors from the Rochester Children's Book Festival also volunteered to partner with Altrusa at our city schools in the ninth annual "Festival to Go". This event was held on October 28th and 29th, 2013 to bring the reading and writing experience to the classroom.
The event included visits to Roberto Clemente School #8 and Nathaniel Hawthorne School #25. The Altrusa Club purchased books from these authors and donated them to each school library. Each author did a 45 minute presentation in the classrooms with their focus around these books. The Altrusa members joined the authors in the classrooms to share in this wonderful experience with the children.
Certificates of appreciation were presented to each school librarian, as well as each author, by the Altrusa members. Our volunteer authors were: Joan Baier, Niki Barrie, Kathleen Blasi, Jim Chaize (teacher at Nathaniel Hawthorne), Elaine Costello, Sibby Falk, Ronnie Frishman, Marsha Hayles, Teresa Jeffery, Kevin Kurtz, Mylisa Larsen, Allene Lind, Rose O'Keefe, Dorelis Osborne, Vicki Schultz, Peg Thomas, Barbara Underhill, Sally Valentine, Vivian Vande Velde and Angela Zale.
A special thank you to author, Vivian Vande Velde and Altrusa member, Jody LaRose for coordinating the "2013 Festival To Go". We also wish to thank the participating authors and the Altrusa members who volunteered their time at the schools.