January PAA Newsletter

For those of you who missed our annual meeting today, I’m sending these notes as our newsletter this month.  We had a lovely luncheon with about 50 members and three guests of members. In addition we had three invited guests:

            Debbie Burkholder, Director of Auxiliary Relations

             Malissa Magallanez, Auxiliaries Relations Associate

             And our guest speaker, Shawna Montoya, parent of an LPCH patient

I thanked our hostess at the University Club, Catherine McGilvray , our luncheon organizer Gerry Nelson and our reservations and nametags guru, Dallas Manning. Past presidents were also acknowledged and photographed. Members and guests heard a short summary from me as outgoing president, mostly reported below.

In 2017, we started the year with 162 members and ended with 153.  We were missing some board members all year but despite a reduced number of members and active board members, we did manage to raise enough to make $50,000 for our annual gift despite losing our lucrative American Girl project which has provided the bulk of our gift for several years. Last Spring was slow, as I was disappointed that we did not accomplish a literary based event last year although we spend a lot of time on it. 

In August, the second annual Summer Garden party was popular and a lot of fun. In Nancy L.’s beautiful back yard, we raised $11,900 from the auction of goods, services and events about twice what was made the first year. Many of the popular items like golf games, sports tickets, dinners, wine baskets and mountain cabins were donated by our own members. Now is the time to be thinking of what you can donate for next year’s auction. The proceeds from the Garden Party were given to “Talk, Read Sing.” the literacy program for the very young that was the designated annual charity for all of the auxiliaries.

Restaurants with Heart, started and chaired the first three months of 2017 by Marlene Bollhoffer, was revamped and continued another 7 months by Karen Stevens, Ginny Wilson and myself. It was expanded to three new locations and we introduced job sharing with six new hostesses. We also found a new and enthusiastic coordinator in Nancy Cameron to continue the program which earned a profit of about $11,700.  You can help out by signing up to be a hostess on a day you plan to come and eat. You can also  sign up with Karen Stevens online or by phone for the next RwH dinner at Sultana on January 29th  and 30^th.

Our direct donation campaign where I mistakenly said that the requested  NICU recliners also rocked, earned about $6,000 much to my surprise and delight. We added enough from PAA general funds to complete the gift to the NICU.

 Thanks to Sharon Brugos, the Holiday Boutique at Allied Arts raised another $800 in December despite selling only cookbooks, totes, aprons and a few other items. 

A few members under Luisa Pliska’s guidance are continuing to sell cookbooks both by individual orders and to several commercial venues and are down to about the last 240 books. Dallas Manning and Nancy Bronstein and others made and delivered 112 totes to the hospital in December.  Gerry Nelson, her loyal students and other members made and donated 134 bears to the hospital in 2017 .

A huge part of our gift to the hospital comes from the multitude of handmade items by our marvelous Thora’s thimbles ladies and associates. Together they produced about 720 cough pillows, 248 owls and some 200 other items including respirator covers, bags for the Teen Van and Beads of Courage, and knitted blankets. Their collective time spent is over 700 hours. In addition, we have the wonderful seamstress who alone donates over 300 blankets to the NICU. If you would like to join the circle or stuff and sew at home, please see Ellen Smith. 

In addition to the many PAA projects we have several members who also work with the Affiliates, including Packard Pantry, Teen Van, Dec My Room, and Hearts and Hands. Each one of them could use more help.

Former president, Nancy Larsson, announced the upcoming March 4^th event: a Fashion Show and Trunk Sale to be held at Allied Arts and in collaboration with AA Guild. She has a great committee of some “older” members and a number of young members , some of them former American Girl mothers, who are organizing this new event. Watch for your invitation coming soon!

I then introduced Mr. Brian Perrone, the Senior Vice President for Development and Administration of the Packard Foundation and ask him to receive our mock-up check for our 2017 cash donation of $50,000. He thanked us and spoke a few minutes about the new hospital and its state of the art design.  Debbie Burkholder also spoke about the value of volunteers and the many physical gifts that PAA produces. 

Then I presented our President Pro-tem for the first trimester of 2018. Currently serving as treasurer, Marilyn Anderson agreed to fill in as president when no one else did. Marilyn spoke briefly on her hopes for creative new ideas and events to start this year. She then introduced our speaker, Shawna Montoya, who told her a stunning account of her child who collapsed at school from an unknown heart defect, was airlifted to Packard,  treated for 3 weeks by a multitude of doctors, nurses and therapists and has made a miraculous and almost complete recovery. Her role as the mother of a severely sick child was fascinating and moving to hear. 

Afterwards, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at the University Club.

Sarah Beetem, 2017 President