Saturday, October 10, 2009

Faces of Courage


Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month it seemed like a good time to tell you about an organization we volunteered with in September. Faces of Courage is a non profit cancer support organization that, at no cost to the participants, provides programs, day outings, overnight camps and end of "chemo parties".


The Juniors volunteered at the Woman's Cancer Retreat event, this was an overnight retreat being held at the Rotary Camp Florida in Brandon. We hosted the Death by Chocolate dessert buffet. I asked our members to provide chocolate baked goods for this event and they delivered! I have never seen so many yummy looking chocolate desserts in one place.


When the Juniors arrived at camp the ladies were in another building have a dance party and a tackiest tourist contest. The Juniors took a quick walk over to see the fun and watch the final judging of the contest. These ladies were having fun but it was almost time for chocolate. We were all set up when they started to come in. You could tell they were enjoying it because the kept "sneaking" back up for seconds. They welcomed and thanked us and we spent some time talking to these strong women. It was then time to clean up and say goodbye, it was getting late and these ladies had yoga in the morning.


I hope the Juniors can volunteer with this organization again the future.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Fall Board Junior Fun Night


Twice a year the Florida Federation holds convention in Orlando. All the Woman's Club and Juniors Club members descend on the Rosen Plaza for a weekend of workshops, meetings and most of all fun. The first convention of the year is Fall Board, and the Tampa Juniors were there.

Friday night is Junior Fun Night and this year's theme was Mama Mia. We were encouraged to dress up and this year the Tampa Juniors went ALL OUT. My partner in crime Diana urged me to go forward with our "dancing queen" costume ideas. We arrived in our room Friday evening, ordered pizza and got to work. Diana was in charge of iron-ons and I was making a tutu for everyone. When the other Juniors, Grace and Brandi, got to the room we all cleaned up, got dressed, donned our tiaras and headed downstairs.

We felt like we were famous, everyone was pointing and waving and calling us over to get a closer look at our outfits. It will be hard to top the "dancing queens" at Spring Convention but I am sure we will try!