SPRING FEATURE
JLW USHERS IN A NEW ERA OF SERVICE Katie Hatfield
T
he purpose of the Junior League of Washington (JLW) since its founding in 1912 has been to develop the potential of women through volunteerism and, in doing so, to make a difference within the community it served. Over the years, as the organization grew in membership and the needs of the community changed with the times, the focus of the League’s efforts evolved as well.
A BRIEF HISTORY To understand the League’s focus on literacy today, it’s important we first take a look back at the organization’s history. Until the 1920s, as the fledgling JLW built membership, it focused efforts primarily on child welfare, but as the DC community faced the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, League members changed their fundraising efforts towards bettering the local economy and caring for the destitute. Following the arrival of World War II in the 1940s and a shift in the economy, League women focused on raising money for war bonds, making clothing for European refugees, and volunteering for the Red Cross, among many others. Post-war, the 1950s and 1960s saw continued volunteer efforts by the League in several areas, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that there was a shift in tone to focus on three areas of interest: community arts, environmental quality, and youth community relations. In 1987, the League turned to its membership base with a comprehensive “needs assessment” to better assess the most pressing issues of the community. The results of the assessment were refined to address the two important topics of “Women in Crisis” and “Youth at Risk” and thus focus on the prevention, education, and treatment of substance abuse (specifically alcohol and narcotics).
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Spring 2021
The League evaluated the focus area once again in 1999 and pivoted to its current multi-faceted focus in order to address DC’s low literacy rates. Since then, literacy has been the lens through which JLW has made all programming decisions: how it evaluates projects in which to invest League resources, how relationships are formed with community partners, and what programs or policies JLW advocates for at the local and federal level. “Literacy seemed to be the spot where everything converged,” said Maria Marks, former JLW president who served on the Board at the time literacy was chosen as the focus area. “We would still be able to work with children, we would still be able to meet a huge gap that was needed that was identified at that time.” Historically, roughly every decade, the League shifted its focus to meet the changing needs of the community in order to remain relevant and provide the best-fitting solution to ever evolving issues. In fact, at the time literacy was chosen, it was only supposed to serve as the focus area for around five years before being reevaluated. “We put a timeframe on it [...] and right before it ended, about a year out, we chose to renew it,” explained Marks. “We were enjoying it and we did not see a need to change the focus area at that point, by extending a year out that would also grant the League time so that if there was a gap either in member needs and wants, or to the
community needs and wants, more importantly, we had a year to figure [it] out.” In essence, this is seemingly the first time in the League’s history that the focus area remained the same for over 20 years. However, when you stop to consider all the social, political, and economic upheaval that we’ve seen over the course of the past year, exacerbated by COVID-19 in the Washington, DC area (let alone nationwide), it seems like the perfect opportunity for the League to once again evaluate what the most pressing needs of the community are and how we can best help meet those needs. “When I found out that we had selected literacy, never intending to keep it forever, I wanted to know more about why didn’t we change or consider another focus? In conversations with past presidents and other leaders, many shared that it seemed too big a project to undertake, how to change course with such a big ship,” explained Jessica Taylor White, current JLW President. White continued, “[And] so, over time, to meet the evolving needs of the community and diverse interest of our membership, we tried to expand our definition of literacy to include cultural literacy, financial literacy, and other topics so that we could do more in the community while still under the umbrella of literacy.”
ENTER THE FOCUS AREA TASK FORCE In spring 2020, the JLW Board of Directors approved the creation of the Focus Area Task Force in order to assess literacy as the current focus area. In addition to Lauren Niles Whalen, as the Task Force’s chair, the members of the Task Force include both current and former JLW leaders with a diverse range of volunteer experiences and perspectives. While the majority of the work was to be completed within the 2020-2021 League
