The GFWC Ruskin Woman’s Club does amazing volunteer work to help support our community through Community Service Projects (CSP’s) and fundraisers. For the year 2023 these are a few examples:

 

Community Service Projects:  

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• Members made sixty homemade Holiday cards for a local Assisted Living Facility for the elderly. This project required nineteen volunteer hours and $73 in-kind donations.

 

• To make sure our active-duty military personnel received some love from Santa and the RWC members during the Holidays, we signed 542 holiday cards to send to them. It took us eight (8) hours (including shopping time!) and $75 in-kind donations.

 

• The Ruskin Woman’s Club Elves were also busy helping Santa with another project for the Holidays. We donated $450 in-kind donations and accrued thirty-nine (39) volunteer hours shopping for, assembling, and delivering holiday items for twenty (20) female military veterans currently residing in an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) located within the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Florida. Each female veteran received a Christmas stocking filled with puzzle books, hand lotion, eatable treats, pens, and notepads, etc., plus a hand crocheted Afghan.

 

• National Service Day we had a two-day food-drive, collecting 700 pounds of food and $200 in gift cards that we distributed to two (2) food banks and a local needy family with special needs children.   Our members volunteered thirty-seven (37) hours for this project.

      

• Our members donated blankets, sheets, towels, toiletries, socks, and new clothing to a local domestic violence organization. The members accrued twenty-one (21) volunteer hours and we donated $354 in-kind donations.

 

• Our Assist with Love project: our members donated and made packages of forty-three (43) Beanie Babies and a homemade Valentine card to give to the residents in the memory care department of a local Assisted Living Facility (ALF) for Valentines Day to remind them that they are loved. We accrued twenty-five (25) volunteer hours and $235 in-kind donations.

 

• Our Quarters of Kindness Community Service Project:  Our members collected quarters throughout the year, then we bagged them in $7-increments and went to three (3) local laundromats to distribute them to forty (40) grateful individuals. We also handed out magazines to occupy their time while doing laundry, bottles of water and snacks. This project required forty (40) volunteer hours, $280 in quarters donated, and $319 in-kind donations.

 

• We had a Boggy Bear workshop to make Boggy Bears to donate to sick children who attend Boggy Creek Camp. This project took 126 volunteer hours, $100 was donated by a member to purchase material, and other members donated $160 of in-kind donations.

   

• We assisted The Hope Seeds Organization to pack seeds to be sent to Haiti for the families to grow their own garden. We packed five hundred (500) bags, accruing twenty-four (24) volunteer hours. This endeavor not only feeds five hundred (500) families, but it also helps prevent soil erosion and decline.

 

Several of our big fundraisers for the year included two (2) fashion shows, featuring Chico Fashions, and our traditional Sweetheart tea. The funds raised from these events allowed us to give eight (8) scholarships to six (6) graduating high school students, one (1) return student to Hillsborough Community College, and one (1) Trade School student studying to be a barber.

 

Our total statistics for 2023 are as follows:

1.  34 Projects

2. 2,395 volunteer hours

3. $21,620 dollars donated

4. $4,677 in-kind donations

5. $15,697 dollars raised for our various projects

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Our GFWC Ruskin Woman’s Club members do care about our community, and we attempt to assist a variety of age groups and walks of life throughout the year.  Our statistics speak for itself in how hard we work, the hours we willingly give of ourselves for the benefit of those less fortunate, and the support we share in our community.