Through the years, the Oak Park Club has actively engaged in service to the local community. It has also made financial contributions to worldwide service projects. Total giving since 1934 was recently determined to be more than $221,000 (which is an underestimate since reports are missing for a few years). Locally, annual projects include: The Young Women in Public Affairs Service Award; collection of Christmas gifts for needy children and adults; contributing monetary donations and doing a fall garden clean-up and a spring planting for Grateful House; assisting the Chicago Greater Food Depository in preparing food for distribution; and delivering Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets for the Township.
In addition, grants are given each year to agencies that benefit women and children. Recent recipients include Grateful House, the Hunger Task Force/Food Pantry, Parenthesis, Sarah's Inn, the Volunteer Center and Literacy Volunteers. Internationally, all Zonta Clubs join together by contributing to the Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award Fund and other selected projects. Zonta International is currently supporting three projects: "Prevention of Female Genital Circumcision" in Burkina Faso Phase 11 (a country in West Africa), Eliminating Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) in Nepal, and Reinventing India: Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls. It also continues to promote ZISVAW- Zonta International Strategies to Eradicate Violence Against Women and Children. Clubs have also been asked to make contributions to the Zonta International Foundation Rose Fund (the new name for the Foundation's General Fund). The Foundation provides gifts to programs most in need of support and uses funds for maintenance of the building housing World Headquarters of Zonta International (in Chicago).
Zonta Club Collect
Keep us, Oh God, from pettiness; let us be large in thought, work, in deed.
Let us be done with fault-finding, and leave off selfseeking.
May we put away all pretense and meet each other face to face, without self-pity and without prejudice.
May we never be hasty in judgment and always be generous.
Let use take time for all things; make us to grow calm, serene, gentle.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses, straight-forward and unafraid.
Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences; that in the big things of life we are as one.
And may we strive to touch and to know the great common woman's heart of us all; and Oh Lord God, let us forget not to be kind.
Mary Steward
Further Information
Zonta Oak Park Brochure
Further information about all of Zonta International's initiatives can be found on its web site:http://www.zonta.org.