Tash Mahnokaren
Staff Writer
The Idaho State University Women’s Club raises funds for scholarships through fundraisers events put on each year. This year, the club will host their annual Holiday Fair on Friday, Nov. 7 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 8 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Pond Student Union Building Ballroom.
Community vendors will be selling crafts in promotion of the fundraiser and all proceeds will go towards funding scholarships.
“It is a crafts fair where we have more than forty vendors come,” said Jody Finnegan, President of the ISU Women’s Club. “We will have all kinds of handcrafted items from jewelry, art, paintings, photography and some knitted crochet items.”
This year’s holiday fair will set a new record with a total of 43 vendors, the most the club has had thus far.
Community support is reportedly crucial to the success of the holiday fair.
Each year vendors from the previous holiday fair are contacted to possibly sell at the fair and it is the continued participation of community members that makes the fair a success, according to the club.
“We also get contacted because there is a really good word-of-mouth amongst the local artisans that show their work at other fairs and we often look to other fairs too that are happening around the region to recruit new vendors,” said Finnegan.
The Women’s Club will also be raffling off a quilt made by the members of the club.
Since 1976, the Women’s Club has awarded scholarships amounting to more than $225,000.
Every year, the club offers three $3,000 scholarships, one of which will go to a female junior student, another to a college of technology student and the last to the child of an employee.
Certain merit requirements apply and can be found on the scholarship announcement in the Bengal Online Scholarship System.
The Women’s Club currently has an endowment worth approximately $100,000.
In the spring semester, the club also offers a luncheon where scholarship recipients are recognized. According to Finnegan, the luncheon also serves as an opportunity to raise more funds for scholarships.
Applications for the Women’s Club scholarships can be obtained through the ISU Scholarship Office.
“Our primary mission is to promote friendship on campus and membership is open to female faculty and staff members, and then wives and significant others of faculty members,” said Finnegan.
The idea of a women’s club was first introduced by the wife of the president of the Idaho Technical Institute, Mrs. Charles R. Frazier, who wanted a means by which faculty wives could get involved within the institution.
The Women’s Club at ISU was first established in 1923 and was formerly known as the Faculty Wives Club and accordingly, only included female faculty members and the wives of faculty members.
In the later years of the club’s establishment, the members wanted to expand further to help students and started a loan fund through which they would loan money to ISU students, which eventually grew into a scholarship program.
“The club became more solidified in the ‘70s when we wrote up an administrative agreement with the foundation office here on campus and started an endowment that we contribute to,” said Finnegan.
This ensures that even if the club is unable to raise enough money at their events to provide scholarships, the endowment that the club donates to each year will be sufficient to fund scholarships.
