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| With my sis, Running Sue, at P.E.O. 2016 Colorado State Convention |
This week, I've been taking steps to get back into the P.E.O. groove.
I've mentioned it before, but, in short, P.E.O. is a women's charitable organization. I've been a "sister" since almost forever. Anyways, we provide scholarships, grants, loans, and friendship in support of women's post secondary education. It's pretty much the only volunteer thing I do these days.
My mom was a P.E.O. and that's how I got involved. I didn't know much about it back when I was 20, but it seemed rude to decline their invitation to join, so here I am.
One nice thing about P.E.O. is that there are chapters all over the United States and Canada. Move? Hitch onto another one!
So when we moved from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins a couple years ago, I knew I'd have sisters here to connect with. There are 10 chapters in Fort Collins alone, and about 20 chapters if I include surrounding towns.
Except... COVID.
Everything P.E.O. went to hell Zoom when COVID hit. We still raised and gave away lots of money for education, but the social side of things naturally dropped. Typically, I would've started visiting other chapters shortly after moving here, but I got held in COVID limbo - Zooming with my CoSprings chapter until things eased up... which is now.
My phone and email have been lighting up with invites from local chapters to come visit. This week, I visited two whose schedules meshed around my work schedule, and I'm on tap to visit another next week.
Meanwhile, P.E.O.'s been working toward modernizing its image in recent years. When I was a kid, this was pretty much what I imagined a typical P.E.O. meeting was...
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| peointernational.org |
Meanwhile, no way will I visit all ten, let alone twenty local chapters. I'll say five tops, then pick a spot to settle down. Well... pending them liking me too. 😊
Until then, it's nice to be a sought after, wined and dined guest.
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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
5. Share something that you worked on this week.
7 comments:
This is all so interesting! I had never heard of this organization until I read your blog a few weeks ago. I am so glad you're able to get involved again.
I have never heard of P.E.O. before. Interesting. That's my learn something new today😁
I think I remember you talking about this before. Sounds like a great organisation, so here's the big question of the day - will you including trans women within the P.E.O?
LL Cool Joe, good question! It has come up in casual conversations, and I don't know the Executive Board's thoughts.
I read this post last night when I was very tired and may have had a glass (or two) of wine. I thought I commented on it. Maybe I dreamed I commented on it?
Sounds like a wonderful organization to be part of to help women. Have you heard of Dress for Success? In case you haven't, I'll give a brief synopsis. A charity that provides business clothes to women reentering the job force. They provide an outfit for interviews then if someone gets a job they can pick an outfit or two and then I think they get some other freebies down the road. I was involved with it when we lived in Billings, Montana and moved in 2006 so not sure how the organization has evolved since then. For those women who chose to take the benefits the organization offered, it was a lifesaver as many had left abusive situations and the like. We had a lot of people who didn't show up for their appointments despite, of course, all the services were free. They even had hair stylists who volunteered time to cut/style women's hair. The women served had to be referred by a social service agency but anyone could be referred from Goodwill so if someone heard about the program but wasn't working with any social service agency, we would refer them to Goodwill to get a referral. The women worked with a "personal shopper" who helped them coordinate the outfit. I just answered the phones for them on a volunteer basis a couple days a week and made appointments, gave out info to people calling about it, etc. The clothes were donated by women in the area or from retail stores. They were very particular with what they took to make sure everything looked current and stylish. We took all donations, but then sorted out what was going to be kept.
Probably said too much if you already knew about it lol. I'll have to see how active P.E.O. is here.
Being wined and dined sounds like a nice thing!
betty
You were right when you called Zoom hell. It's hell. I'm happy you are getting back into the swing of P.E.O!
I pretty much hole myself up in my house all day and have never even really so much as volunteered at my own kids' schools. You're an inspiration!
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