PRESIDENTS ANNUAL CLUB

REPORT
2014-2015
ALTRUSA INTERNATIONAL OF
DALLAS, TEXAS, INC.
DEBORAH HECHT, PRESIDENT

This time last year I stood before you and asked you to work together
living the Principles of Altrusa and fulfilling the Responsibilities of
Altrusans. Tonight I stand here humbled and grateful by all you have
accomplished and how completely you honored Altrusas principles
and responsibilities.
I know this year we did some things differently. Our year started
differently when we had all of our planning meetings in one full day
of Planning Day. We also changed our meeting format to business
on the first meeting of the month and program on the second
meeting. Both of these changes allowed us to be more efficient and
respectful of everyones time. I appreciate your willingness to accept
change and try something different.
Before we begin to look back on our year, Id like to start by thanking
all of you for all the contributions you made to make this year
successful. We are all so different and bring different skills, ideas,
procedures, and strengths to our organization. By pulling all these
differences together and working toward common goals we were
able to achieve our goals and make a difference in our community.
And oh how our community was served this year. Thank you so much
to Gillian, Karen, and Phyllis who created a service committee
atmosphere where hands on service would be paramount. Our small
Club of 29 members served the community 1649 hours as Altrusans.
This is two and half times last years service hours with less
members. One of the goals for this year was for each service project
to offer the opportunity for 100% participation. With every project we
notified all members and gave each the opportunity to get on board.
Our service hours per member at 56.9 shows how often the call was
answered. Thank you to each and every one of you who helped to
meet the needs of our community.
I had asked this year for our service projects to be more than simple
donations, with the obvious exception of scholarships and person to
person. I am thrilled to remind you that all of our projects included
some element of hands on service and actual service hours. This is
further evidenced in our 96% plus participation rate, which
represents all except one member. Lets take a look at our service
projects this past year.
With 542.6 total service hours and 93% paricipation, Mosaic Family

We followed this by creating Good night/Sleep tight bags for the child residents at Mos
about a year and a half of the child intakes at Mosaic House. When we made the blanke

At the same time we worked on our Mosaic Spice Pantry. Ninetynine percent of the residents at Mosaic are foreign nationals. They
come from all over the world and are used to many different tastes
and spice palettes. Most of the food received is bland basics. Our
Club spent about $120 buying bulk spices from all over the world
from a wish list provided by Mosaic. Gillian generously purchased
small mason jars and labeled them all. On the same day we packed
the Goodnight bags, we also filled jars with spices. The women at
Mosaic were thrilled to be able to cook meals that taste like home.
Because we bought the spices in bulk, they should last more than

In December we found out there was a new resident at Mosaic who

bravely made the decision to leave her abuser late in her pregnancy.
This woman had no items for her baby. Sabra jumped right into this
project and arranged a baby shower for her. With the money we had
left in the Mosaic budget plus gifts from our members who attended
and gifts from Mosaic board members who also attended we were
able to give her all the items she needed to bring her son home from
the hospital. Not only did we give her necessary items, we showed
her that that the community cares about her personally and she did
indeed have a village to help her raise her son. All of us who
attended the shower were moved by the experience and the

These projects alone would have been a huge contribution to Mosaic, but we didnt stop
by Phyllis, the printer donated by Lori, my office donated the office chairs, Half Price Bo

This project was more physically demanding than our typical work so we have many Alt
workstations or helping to serve food at our Resource Room Grand Opening Cookout. Th

THE ALTRUSA
RESOURCE ROOM

Lastly, in April, our newest Altrusan Shauna organized English as a

second Language Bingo at Mosaic House. Not only was this a fun
night for both Altrusans and the clients at Mosaic, it also met our
goal of allowing club members to initiate their own mini no money
projects. Not only did Shauna organize this project, but she also
invited two potential Altrusans to join. Hopefully these guests will
become Altrusans in the future. Thank you Shauna for taking the
lead and making the evening happen.
Another one of our service goals was to do a Make a Difference Day
project on the specified Saturday. This year we created 50 Halloween
Safety bags for the children at DCAC. Sabra led this project and
purchased reflective Halloween bags to fill with reflective stickers,
whistles, glow sticks, candy, flashlights, crayons, and Halloween
safety coloring pages and stories. Our group gathered on MADD
Saturday at Whole Foods to assemble the bags with the hope of
attracting attention to our project and sharing information about
Altrusa. Thank you so much to Sabra who organized and purchased
the items for the projects and to Karen who got DCAC involved and
delivered the packages there.
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Near the end of the Club year we had extra money in the budget
earmarked for DCAC and Karen organized the purchase of books and
coloring books to be donated for the waiting room of DCAC. These
items are always needed there and they were very appreciative of
the donation.
This year Phyllis led us back to working with Our Friends Place.
They asked us to create bath caddies for new residents. We
individually purchased full sized personal care items and filled the
caddies at the Club meeting when Sue Hesseltine was our guest
speaker. Additionally, because we know that interacting with those
we serve is incredibly impactful, we also visited Our Friends Place
and taught a life skills class. There, we worked with all the residents
to create an easy to make dinner. After dinner, Lori taught them how
to make jewelry. She brought all sorts of beads and an assortment of
tools. While the young women worked on making their pieces, we
had an opportunity to simply talk with them. It was a great chance to
make a difference by being present. Sometimes, just being there,
makes a difference. Thank you so much to Lori for her preparation

Before the Club year began, Sandra applied for and won a grant from
our International Foundation to create the Early Readers Club at
the Dr. Martin Luther King Learning Center. In the past we had done
work with MLK to stock their uniform closet but this year we found
another way to help. Our work at MLK this past year honored our
focus on literacy. In an economically disadvantaged school like MLK it
is very uncommon for children to have books of their own. This year,
we supplied each and every child in the first grade with a book of his
or her own. We wanted them to feel that reading is special and fun
so we created the Early Readers Club. To kick off the MLK ERC we
came to the school with the books and logo tee-shirts for each child.
We had a gathering of the entire first grade and had a bit of a party
with refreshments and fun discussion of the book. The children
seemed genuinely excited to be receiving their books an many
started reading them the moment they got them in their hands. A
special thanks to Sandra for applying for the grant and organizing
the project. Thank you so much to Gillian who created the tee-shirt
club logo and made all the tee-shirts at a deeply discounted price.
Thank you to also to those who attended the kick-off at MLK in

For the tenth year, our Club participated in the Christmas tree decoration at Texas Scott
organizing our efforts at TSRHC and bringing our Club to the project.

Scholarship night was a very special Club meeting. This year, we honored seven deserv

Two years ago, when the devastating fertilizer explosion happened in

West, Texas, our own Gillian knew we needed to do something to
help. She proposed it to Governor Beth Blair who then applied for the
Governors Disaster Relief Grant through our International
Foundation. District Nine held the funds and the Dallas Club added
funds as well. The funds were designated for the rebuilding of the
middle school Library in West and we presented them at our
fundraising luncheon in March. Our funds will be used to purchase ereaders for the library when it is completed. Additionally, in
September, to honor literacy month, we made bookmarks with
encouraging phrases for the children. Our plan is to continue to help
West and Jan Hungate, the assistant superintendent of schools, has
assured us that in the not too distant future there will be lots of
opportunities for hands on service. Thank you Gillian for keeping us

Lastly, we continued to collect pop-top tabs to

donate to Ronald McDonald House of Dallas.
Thank you Dee for organizing this project and
managing the collection and donation.

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This is a truly amazing assortment of work. I encourage you all to take a moment and th

Our organization is based on service but it takes many other components to support tha
members they may not ordinarily talk to outside of meetings or projects.

Each month the Membership Development Committee also organized the Fun of the M

Communiqu
ALTRUSA INTERNATIONAL OF DALLAS, TEXAS, INC.

DISTRICT NINE

JULY 2014

Presidents Message

DeborahH echt
2014-2015 President
Altrusa International
of Dallas, Texas, INC.
deborahahecht@gmail.com

Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not

more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is
not nurturing to the whole woman. --Maya Angelou
Change is hard. The impact of change varies from
person to person, circumstance to circumstance,
but universally, change is hard.
So far this year our Club has experienced several
changes. We did a planning day instead of many
meetings over the period of a couple of weeks, our
agendas are a slide show instead of printed, we
meet at a new location, our meetings are split into
business and programs, and we are planning to give
more from our hearts and hands than from a checkbook. Any one of these changes individually would
probably be an easy assimilation, but all at the
same time require flexibility, understanding, patience, and a willingness to make an effort.
As this years president, I am grateful for each of
you as we traverse these changes together. I ask
you to keep in mind that none of the changes we
are making this year are just for the sake of change.

Each change has a specific purpose and desired

outcome in mind. The changes are part of the process of meeting goals.
As I write this, I am reminded of our former member
Sidelle, and Blockbuster, the company she worked
for many years. Most of you know the story of
Blockbuster Video. Blockbuster started as a video
rental company in 1985 at the corner of Northwest
Highway and Skillman. By the time it was purchased by Viacom in 1994 it was a multi-billion dollar company. They had a business model that
worked and the company flourished.
In 2000 Blockbuster had an opportunity to purchase Netflix for only fifty million dollars. Netflix
had a different business model for the same product. Blockbuster did not see any need to change
and did not make the purchase. They assumed
their success would continue to carry them. Netflix
continued to move forward by not only offering dvd
via mail, but also allowing customers to stream
them directly to their computers or televisions
through the internet. Today, Netflix is valued at
over twenty six billion dollars.
In 2002 Redbox started placing video rental kiosks
at the entrances of big box stores like Walmart and
grocery chains. They only charged one dollar for the
rental and there were no brick and mortar stores
and retail employees as corporate expenses. Again,
Blockbuster was presented with an opportunity to
change and chose not to change the way they did
business.
We all know how this story ends. By 2010 Blockbuster filed bankruptcy and late last year it ceased

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Recruitment was not ignored. From April to April, the way International
measures membership, we brought in four members, Stephanie
Mitchell, Mignona Cote, Lori Smith, and Shauna Gantt. Our goal was to
bring in five new members with a net gain of two. Unfortunately, we
fell one short on new members, yet we showed great improvement
over the past few years. We found our newest members, Lori and
Shauna via social media and work on our service projects.
Congratulations to our Membership Development Committee, along
with our Communications Committee for working in tandem to
achieve results. Thank you for your efforts!

Our Communications committee was lead brilliantly by Carolyn, Susie, and Guadalupe.

This Club year, we had a newsletter on the first of every single month, as per our goal.

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Susie was charged with creating our yearbook and roster book. Both publications were

Carolyn ensured our webpage remained up to date the entire year. She had our officer i

Our newest members, both teachers, created our display board for conference. Photos

We not only used Facebook but we also started developing a Twitter following. When the

I think the greatest compliment to the work of the Communications committee came fro

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Lastly, none of our work is possible without funding. This year Betty,
Dee, Sharron, and led the Ways and Means Committee. The year, we
had three fundraising projects; Grease Sing-a-Long movie at the
Lakewood Theater, Nut Sales, and Womens History Month Luncheon.
The movie event was a new project this year and met some of the
goals set forth for the Ways and Means Committee. I had asked our
fundraising to be efficient and that the funds raised be commiserate
with the time spent on the project. The movie was a fairly simple
event to put together, it required less time than some of our other
past projects. It was a fun event and it got our name out into the
community, another goal. The theater publicized it on their website
and with posters and it was easy and fun to promote using social
media. We earned $1152 at the movie event and it was only our first
year. It is a project we can hopefully build on for the future. Sharron
Vance took the lead on this project and did an outstanding job. It was
all new terrain and it went off without a hitch. Thank you Sharron.

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This year we brought back the old favorite of nut sales at the holiday season. Betty Law

Lastly, this year we had the Third Annual Womens History Month Luncheon at the Prest

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For those of you who like numbers, here are a few astounding
numbers which will clarify how hard we worked this year. Our total
service hours were 4720. Our service hours outside of Altrusa were
1251. Our service to Club hours and organization were 1820. This
breaks down to 162.7 hours per member. These are amazing
numbers and a true testament to how hard you all worked this year.
Time is such a valuable thing. You cant make more and its definitely
a limited resource. You, Dallas Altrusans, gave of yours so
generously. Thank you for every single moment you shared to make
our Club, our community, our organization, and our world a better
place.
There are many more bits of gratitude Id like to express. Thank you
to the Finances Committee who did so many things, mostly behind
the scenes this past year. The committee revamped our financial
policy to bring it up to date. Additionally, Phyllis and Meg worked for
hours and hours with the IRS when the IRS inadvertently removed
our tax exempt status from our foundation. Phyllis and Meg, I know it
was frustrating work and I am so grateful to you for handling it.
Thank you also for always getting the financials to me to be emailed
prior to the business meeting. I know the timing on some months
was very tight, so I especially appreciate your efforts.
Thank you to Gillian who took such accurate minutes this year and
always got them out in time to be approved at the next business
meeting. Thank you also to Jan and sometimes Carolyn who filled in
for her brilliantly when she couldnt be at a meeting.
Speaking of JanI am so lucky to have had Jan as Vice President.
Jan managed the ordering of the food for each meeting and the
arrangement of the seating. Jan worked with me on so many things
and I am so grateful for her and her dedication to Altrusa. I am lucky
to have worked with Jan, but even luckier to call her friend.
Thank you so much to Susie who stepped in as Parliamentarian when
Beth was no longer able to attend. Not only did Susie help at
meetings, she also was quick to answer questions whenever I asked.
I am grateful for your knowledge and guidance Susie.
Thank you Sabra for your guidance as Immediate Past President. I
now know why that position exists. Your experience and willingness
to help guide is greatly appreciated.
Sharron, I am very grateful you allowed me to hand the torch to you
while I traveled through Asia in April. I knew the Club was left in
capable hands. Thank you for carrying our banner at conference and16
for managing my responsibilities while I was gone.

Thank you to Valeta for chairing the Friendship Fund this year. I knew
you were the perfect candidate for the job and I appreciate the time
you spent taking care of it. Luckily, none of us needed it this year,
but its great to know its there and well managed if one of us finds
ourselves in a dire situation.
Lastly, a very special thank you to my dear friend Carolyn. Carolyn
did so much to help me this past year there is hardly enough time
mention it all. Carolyn was my rock. When I didnt know something,
Carolyn helped me. When I was upset or annoyed by something,
Carolyn talked me down off the ledge. When I debated on how to
handle an issue, Carolyn reviewed the pros and cons with me. After
my surgery, when I couldnt walk or drive for over 4 months, Carolyn
picked me up at home, loaded my scooter into her car and got me to
meetings. Had it not been for Carolyn, I may have had to step down
from the position of President, but she made it possible for me to get
to where I needed to be. I am so grateful to Carolyn. You my friend,
are a model Altrusan, and I hope my continued work as an Altrusan
properly honors what you have demonstrated for me.
Written by Mamie L. Bass in 1921 one Altrusan principle still speaks
to me the loudest. Altrusa believes it is not enough to be good;
Altrusans must be good for something. Each member must be doing
the piece of work that is hers in a way that puts her in the front ranks
of accomplishment. I believe we have all lived this principle this
past Club year and should hold our heads high. We have searched for
and found the best in character, in business, and in citizenship.

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