LUDLOW, Vt. – The General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) Okemo Valley Women’s Club (OVWC) met Monday, Sept. 9, to begin their season of meetings and volunteerism. Thirty-three women attended the 2024-2025 year’s inaugural meeting, including nine guests.
The evening’s speaker was Darlene Remy, the president of Vermont GFWC. Remy, also a member of OVWC, spoke about color blindness, which is her President’s Project. She explained that there are 800 million people with color blindness, and it is her hope as state president that each Vermont GFWC club will initiate a project to benefit people with color blindness. September is Color Blindness Month, and Remy also hopes to bring awareness to the disease. Almost 20 years ago, EnChroma developed and patented color-blind glasses, which has changed the way red-green color-blind people see the world. These glasses stimulate the brain’s color processing center, and enhance color vision for most people with red-green color blindness. Remy shared an emotional video of color-blind people looking through EnChroma color-blind glasses for the first time. The OVWC will be making a commitment to the President’s Project.
Following this enlightening discussion, the club shared a potluck dinner, then held a business meeting. The newly elected president, Sally Scarp, shared her plans and vision for the next year of volunteerism and community enhancement. She also reviewed last year’s events, donations, volunteer efforts, and community projects.
The club discussed upcoming plans for the fall state meeting, which OVWC will host in Ludlow on Oct. 19. They also participated in the National Day of Service on Saturday, Sept. 28, to raise awareness of food insecurity. This year OVWC will again hold a food drive that Saturday, to collect nonperishables to distribute to local food shelves. The food drive was held at three sites; Shaw’s market in Ludlow, Singleton’s Store in Proctorsville, and Shaw’s market in Springfield. Each drive was held from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Last year, the OVWC held this food drive and collected 340 pounds of nonperishable food items to donate to Black River Good Neighbor Food Shelf.
The club also volunteered recently to bake items for last week’s Black River Academy Museum’s Apple Festival Bake on Sept. 21.
The next meeting of the GFWC Okemo Valley Women’s Club will be held Monday, Oct. 14, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Black River Valley Senior Center in Ludlow. Anyone wishing to attend, or for more information, may contact President Sally Scarp at 407-242-0901, Membership Chairwoman Suzanne Garvey at 802-236-4341, or any club member.
GFWC is an international women’s organization dedicated to community improvement by enhancing the lives of others through volunteer service.