Their love for Salt Lake and its residents drives our Sustaining members to work hard to make the valley a better place for everyone. Moving. They drove it to the Terrace Ballroom, where we set up clothing racks made by our husbands out of PVC pipe. Everyone who had card tables brought them for the booths. We set up four different restaurants, sprinkled among the booths, where you could sit down and have a hamburger or a pizza or other nationalities’ food, donated and run by local restaurants. We operated for three full days. People from the west side flocked into the Ballroom, where they could buy their kids' shoes for $1.00, baby clothes for $3.00 or less, and onward like that. At the end of the three days, everything left was 25 cents. As we were closing, a mother of three carrying two huge bags of shoes and clothing for her children asked me, tears in her eyes, “When are you doing this again? You don’t know what this means to me and my family.” Her husband had a large sack of his own, with shoes that fit him. He was grinning from ear to ear. I said, “This may be the last one we do because it engages our entire League for one project, and we have about 20 projects we have to service. But we thank you for coming and buying all this. Your money has contributed to vital services for the whole community.” They looked delighted that they had been able to contribute to the city and county. It empowered them and exhausted us, but in the end, we made $28,000 the first year we did it, and $32,000 the second year. That was the end of our huge project, but it brought all our members together for this one big effort. We made lifelong friends working on it. And I think it was the most fun we ever had, in or out of the League.” Whether they were Active 10 years or 40 years ago, the League remains an important part of who these members are. “I still get together monthly for dinner with a group of fellow Sustainers. Seeing them reminds me of our hard but fun work in the past, and their current volunteer work inspires me to stay involved,” said Jennifer Gaskill, who became a Sustainer in the 2010s. Although their League participation may seem limited in the eyes of Active members these days, today’s Sustainers have a love for the JLSLC with deep roots. We look forward to Active members joining our ranks when the time is right for them and showing them how to champion the League in a new way. 15 Women Elevated
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