If after reading about the East African Women’s Center and its programs, you’re asking, “How can I support this program?” here are some ideas of contributions you can make.

Some of the Center’s current material needs include:

• Hardly-used outdoor toys for 1 to 4-1/2 year olds— trikes, 2-wheelers with training wheels, push toys, a wagon, etc.

• Gardening tools and other equipment to use in our community garden plot

• Non-exotic fabrics from which women can make clothes for themselves and their children. 2+ yard lengths of cotton, rayon, corduroy, flannel, linen, non-slippery synthetics, etc.

• Yarn (preferably NOT wool) in basic colors like red, blue, yellow, green, black, white, orange, and lime green (a real favorite).

• And, of course a financial contribution is always appreciated. It allows the Center to buy food to try nutritional recipes in the Center’s kitchen, provide healthy snacks for the children in our Family Childcare Center, take mothers and their toddlers on field trips to locations in the Twin Cities new to new Americans, and buy supplies to enhance our sewing and weaving programs

 
Artist Pam Schloff
worked with our
Girls’ Group for
several weeks,
helping them create
a wall hanging for
the Women’s
Center.

If you would like to volunteer at the Center, please call Doroth to learn about volunteer opportunities at the Center. Currently, the Center’s biggest needs are:

• Sewing volunteers—women with sewing experience who are willing to help with one 2-1/2 hour class each week.

• Women who love children and are willing to spend 2 hours each week supporting the Center’s family childcare workers and helping the toddlers become school ready.

• Women who would practice very basic conversation with elder women learning English in our Elder Women’s ESL.

• “American friends.” Support refugee women navigate American systems. The Center provides translators; YOU provide your problem solving skills. (Please call Doroth at the Center for more information.)

(To avoid duplication, please call the Center at 612-332-8402 —ask for either Doroth Mayer or Hawo Karshe—before you bring gifts to the Center.)
When CSCM rented the Women’s Center’s space from Sherman and Associates in November 2005, we had ONLY the generosity of the broader community to furnish it. Some ”friends” donated furniture and computers, built shelves, and contributed dollars to buy sewing machines. Others contributed fabric so we could start our sewing classes. Most volunteers have helped with sewing, but others have also helped with our Elder Women’s ESL Program and our “Living Across Cultures” Girls’ Group.
Now that we have this website (also the result of a volunteer —thank you Larry Hansen!), our intention is to honor at least one contributor to the Center each month. Our May 2007 honorees come from Augsburg College.
Mary Laurel True, Associate Director of Service, Work, and Learning at Augsburg College, is a true friend of the East African Women’s Center. Most recently, Mary orchestrated a kitchen shower for the Center. Mary knew that cooking in the Center’s new kitchen was a popular activity at the Center; she also knew that the kitchen was missing many essential items. When three students from Professor Bev Stratton’s religion class came to her for a project that would benefit the community, Mary suggested the idea of a kitchen shower for the Women’s Center. The girls used a wish list provided by the Center and sought donations from faculty, staff, students, and friends. In addition to “presents” for the women to unwrap, cash gifts and gift cards were encouraged so the women from the Center could select what they wanted for their kitchen. The shower was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this event, and thank you Mary for your leadership!
Here are just a few of the women who attended the kitchen shower thrown for the women from the East African Women’s Center by the women from Augsburg College. Approximately 20 women from Augsburg joined 25 women from the Center for conversation, cake, and presents.
Kristen has finished the painting but she is not ready to quit her volunteer job —and the Center is NOT ready for her to leave. She is becoming our “handy person” and handling those odd jobs necessary to keep the Center running smoothly
Another relationship that developed out of the “Augsburg Connection” is the Center’s friendship with Augsburg student Kristen Hoyles. Kristen came to the Center for the first time during Augsburg President Pribbenow’s inauguration week last fall when a service group from Augsburg spent a morning painting at the Center. After Kristen saw the Center, heard about its renovation, and realized how much painting was still needed, she made a commitment to become the Center’s volunteer wall painter. Not only did she come weekly to paint (from October 2006 through April 2007), she taught three of the adolescent girls in Girls’ Group how to paint too. Thank you Kristen for your friendship!