Soroptimist International of Los Angeles
ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS
June/July 2016                                                                   Vol. 7, Issue 6

FELLOWSHIP WINNER - 27 YEARS LATER

The speaker at the May 4 program meeting was Andrea Davis, Ph.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist and head of Greenhouse Therapy Center in Pasadena. Andrea was the winner of the SILA Graduate Fellowship Award in 1989!
 
“It is truly unbelievable to me that the dream I outlined in my acceptance speech to you in the spring of 1989 has been made a reality,” Andrea noted.
 
Her Center has served the greater Pasadena community richly since that time. The Center is located in two grand vintage homes side by side on California Boulevard. Through the years, they have “set many lives on the right course for forever growing stronger.” And they have provided clinical training for over 200 graduate students in psychology at the master’s, doctoral, and post-doctoral levels.
 
Andrea has been recognized for her expertise in guiding parents of children and teens with autism. She is a leader of groups that share the latest research and clinical advances in autism therapy and she is working on autism treatment legislation.
 
“Thank you so much for your faith in me and your tangible support of my early career launch.  Without your financial award, it would have been very difficult to delay full time work to pursue a post-doctoral clinical and research fellowship in early childhood. Clearly the core learning from that experience paid off many times over for the children and families and adults my Center serves.”
 

 
Two new members, Charlotte Lerchenmuller and Ramona Kuzyk, joined Amy Poulos, Carole Oglesby, Jessica Washington, Jeri Durham, Diane Vernon and Bev Johnson, on Saturday, May 7, at the Downtown Women Center to cook breakfast for 200 homeless ladies.

They prepared breakfast burritos which consisted of squash, sweet potatoes, spinach, and beans served on a whole wheat tortilla. The ladies also had yogurt with fresh fruit, and could add sliced avocadoes and cheese to the burrito. Cutting that squash was a killer!!

The recipe was really foreign to all of the Soroptimist, but most of the ladies seemed to like it.  Many came back for seconds.  SILA brought them flowers for the tables, as it was the day before Mother's Day.
 

MEET OUR NEW MEMBERS 

SILA is delighted to welcome three new members to Soroptimist.

MARGARET FREED

SILA may have just broken a club record – certainly for SILA, but maybe for all Soroptimist clubs – by inducting a new member who is OVER 100 years old! Margaret Freed will be 101 in November, 2016, but that didn’t stop her from becoming one of SILA’s newest members in May.
 
Margaret was born, raised, and worked in Los Angeles her entire life.  She attended Garfield High School but having skipped third and eleventh grades, she graduated at age 16. Always artsy, she got a scholarship for art school out of high school, but her mother insisted she get training in a field where she “could make a living.” She attended Los Angeles Community College and eventually became a Registered Nurse through USC, formerly the county hospital.
 
She met her husband when he was a tuberculosis patient who later did his residency at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles. She ended up working with him in his private practice in LA for 50 years. Margaret and her husband started Barlow Guild House, a gift shop of unique gifts which helped support the funding needs of the hospital for over 60 years. Margaret continued running it after Dr. Freed’s death, as did their granddaughter – and fellow SILA member – Amy Poulos.
 
Margaret was married over 60 years, has two children, 3 grandchildren and a 13 year old great grandson, all in the LA area. Be sure to ask her about her collections of turtles, butterflies, and Japanese Netsuke!  She stays busy sewing 20 clown dolls a month for the California Hospital Children’s Ward as well as wardrobes for American Girl dolls. And now, of course, she’ll be active in SILA activities as well.


CHARLOTTE LERCHENMULLER
Charlotte Lerchenmuller is a native Angeleno who attended Franklin High School in Highland Park and earned a BA and Masters from Cal State LA with credentials in teaching, counseling and administration.
 
She had a 39 year career with LAUSD.  She retired after 14 years as principal of Emerson Middle School where she was a colleague of SILA member Lessie Caballero, also a retired middle school principal. She now works with fellow SILA member Jeri Durham as a consultant for AALA (Associated Administrators of Los Angeles) representing administrators and classified civil servants within LAUSD.
 
Her husband of 45 years died three years ago but she has two step sons and two grandsons, ages 18 and 23. An avid gardener, seamstress, needle worker and quilter, she also has two cats and is redoing the kitchen of her Silver Lake home.
 
She was drawn to SILA because of its hands-on service activities. She’s already joined SILA in serving breakfast at the Downtown Women’s Center and loved it!

RAMONA KUZYK
Ramona Kuzyk is a Canadian who grew up in a rural area outside Edmonton. After earning a Masters in Library and Information Studies from the University of Alberta and working for a year in Canada, she was lured to Los Angeles in 2000 at the age of 28 by Los Angeles Public Library recruiters who had a jobs table at a library convention in Edmonton.
 
Librarian jobs were scarce in Canada but there was a librarian shortage in Los Angeles. She spent four years as a teen librarian at the LA Central Library, then four years as a children’s librarian in Northridge, but has spent the last eight years as a children’s librarian at Atwater Village Library. She’s enjoyed all her assignments but is particularly happy where she is.
 
Atwater is close to the new home she just purchased in Glassell Park in November. After a three year search, the new house is only two miles from her prior home. She admits she’s “obsessing” over making it just how she wants. She also just adopted a new rescue cat, Polly, with health issues, and has another rescue cat, Betty. “I didn’t expect to become a “cat lady!” she says.
 
Ramona’s current work schedule includes Wednesday and Thursday nights, so you won’t see her at many SILA meetings. And she usually spends Augusts in Canada visiting her Mom and a nephew. But she enjoys hands-on community service (she met Amy Poulos through her volunteer work at the Barlow Guild House) and is looking forward to participating in SILA activities.

 

SILA’s own Ginger Cole was installed as Governor of Camino Real Region at the Spring Conference on May 14.
 
In her speech at the installation, she presented the 2016-2018 Region Theme: CATCH THE DREAM. She gave everyone a dream catcher as a symbolic representation of the theme.
 
Legends say a dream catcher hung over your bed will catch your dreams. Negative nightmarish dreams get caught up in the mesh and dissipate, while positive dreams slip seamlessly down and become our reality.
 
As Ginger said, “Soroptimist is dedicated to creating programs for those whose dreams have been deferred. We become partners in others’ journeys. Through our programs, we have the ability to make others’ dreams come true. We have the ability to help women and girls reinvent the dreams that they have lost. They need “a kiss to build a dream on” and we can provide that for them. We can become their dream catchers.”
 
This biennium, we will R.I.S.E., focusing on:
            Retention, recruitment and recognition
            Inclusivity
            Support and fellowship, and
            Engagement
 
We will strive to build a healthy region with healthy clubs that are viable and fun. This biennium we will RISE together and we will “CATCH THE DREAM”.

SILA installation dinner was a festive affair held June 15 at El Cholo Restaurant.

It included a heartfelt farewell and gifts to Joyce Jacob after serving two years as SILA president and a welcome to Daphyne Howell as the new president and her board.

Daphyne's theme for 2016-2017 will be "Practice Makes Perfect". More on that next year!

Pictured here are Lola Abrahamiam, CRR District II Director from SI Glendale and the new board Jeri Durham, Treasurer; Jessica Washington, Director 2016-18; Daphyne Howell, President; Joyce Jacob, 1st Vice President; Amy Poulos, 2nd Vice President; and Diane Vernon, Director 2015-17. Missing is Lessie Caballero, Secretary.