What Inspired Me to Join the JLC

By: Madison Baer

I sat in a hard theater chair with a bustling audience, eager to watch my mother and father perform. They were Broadway stars and I felt just as much the celebrity that I was their daughter. Technically my parents weren’t actual stars, but to a six-year-old, the Follies were magic.

My grandparents had flown in to babysit my little sister and me so my parents could make their show-business debut. Perhaps, the fact that I was six-years-old made the sheer size of this production seem larger than life, but in retrospect, that’s because it actually was that grand.

The scale of the last Follies performed by the women of the Junior League of Charlotte, Inc. (JLC), their husbands, and many local celebrities, including performance artist Harden Minor, was iconic. A professional Broadway director was hired to orchestrate the varying acts, solo artists and entertainment. My parents dazzled me dressed in 1920s garb as they performed a dance routine with many other League members and their spouses.

The evidence of its grandeur is apparent in the volume of money raised. The Follies performance on February 27, 1998 raised $1.15 million and set a record. $1.5 million was the most money raised in one year by any Junior League chapter in the country.

I grew up with zeal and excitement to one day be part of such a monumental fundraiser for the JLC like my mother before me. My mother, Carol Baccile, continued to share her involvement with the Junior League as the years passed and I continued to join her at events. When I moved back to Charlotte in 2019, I finally joined the Junior League myself with my childhood neighbor and family friend, Suzy Garvey, as my sponsor.

My placements have mirrored those of my mother these past three years. My first year, as a provisional, I volunteered to work the Lights, Camera, Fashion fundraising event. That brought back memories of time spent with my mother at the

SouthPark Mall in 2008, when the JLC put on a fashion show fundraiser hosted by Kristin Davis featuring her clothing line as well as other designers. In subsequent years I have joined the same placements as my mother such as Done-in-a-Day and the Junior League magazine (she was on The Sea Oats magazine in Clearwater/ Dunedin Junior League before she transferred to the JLC). My mother inspired me to join this remarkable volunteer organization, just as my grandmother inspired her to join as well. I am proud to be a part of the long legacy of my family’s participation in the Junior League.