PHOTO PROVIDED Members of We Are Women Helping Others pose for a group photo celebrating the organization’s 15th anniversary.

Mother Theresa is attributed with saying, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” There is a group of local women who get together monthly to pool their resources and put that thought into action, blessing

the community in ways that none of them could have done alone. Their motto is “it doesn’t take a lot to do a lot when you do it together.”

For 15 years We are Women Helping Others (WAWHO) has donated both money and tangible items to local non-profits. So far this band of philanthropists has donated over $87,000.

“I don’t like to sound like we’re bragging, because I’m not,” said Maddi Dunlap, one of the original members and organizers of the group.

“But what I want to do is inspire people to think it doesn’t take a lot to do a lot. It really, really doesn’t. You just have to be consistent. Keep doing it, and it just, very slowly, quietly adds up,” she said.

Dunlap emphasized that these are not wealthy women, they are just women who want to make a difference in the lives of others.

It all began after Dunlap and a friend, Penny Estes, were discussing a book they had read about women’s issues and the nonprofits that had been created to address them.

“We started these conversations about, well, that’s so inspiring these people to start up these nonprofits, but we can’t do that, but maybe we could help some of these nonprofits by supporting them. And we just thought, well, we could do that together, then neither one of us would have to commit a lot of money,” she said.

Then they realized that there were friends who might also be interested in their idea.

“So, it was, let’s have a brainstorming session and see what we can come up with. And that was basically as simple as it was. We threw together an email to a bunch of us that we kind of knew were in the same kind of boat that we’d had similar conversations with,” she said.

“We called a meeting, and we just sat down and started kicking it out. And we thought the simplest thing to do is everybody bring some money, we put it together, and we donate together, you know, with one amount . And instead of everybody trying to do something separately, we do it together. And then that way, we could donate a lot more than any one of us could do by ourselves,” she said.

Although they began with eight or nine people, now about 30 committed members-although that number fluctuates at any given meeting-get together to pool their money. There is no advertising for members. It’s all done by friends inviting friends.

There is no set dollar amount required for donation. That too fluctuates depending on personal situations.

At the meetings members brainstorm about which non-profit needs their support.

“We sit down and we kind of just start having conversations and talk about what has come on everybody’s radar and stuff…or somebody might have gotten a mailing and says, hey, you know what, we haven’t donated to so and so for a while, or something like that or or, I heard that, you know, Sojourner (Ministries) is in need of this or that,” Dunlap explained.

“We just kind of kick it around, and then we look at our pile of money and see how much we have, and then we just decide what we’re going to do. A lot of times, many times, we will donate to more than one thing in a month. We’ll say, Okay, we’ve got $500 this month. Let’s do $200 over here and $100 over here. So that’s how we do that,” she said.

There are also times when a non-profit is looking for specific non-monetary donations and WAWHO responds.

“The core idea is that you come to a meeting, you bring some cash, we throw it in a pile, in a basket in the middle of the table, and that’s it. But we do offer opportunities to do more if you wish,” Dunlap said.

For example, last month, a call came from Susquehanna Health Foundation that they wanted to provide adult coloring books, colored pencils and puzzle-type books for patients going through chemotherapy at the Hillman Cancer Center.

“I said to the gang in August, okay, if anybody is interested in participating in this, this is what they need. This is what they would like to have. If you’re interested in participating, bring it to the next meeting, and I will be happy to deliver it to them, ” she said.

“The pile of stuff that we had, it took me three trips to my car to get it out…it was just amazing. But that was totally voluntary. It was like, whoever wanted to bring stuff brought it, and whoever forgot or wasn’t interested, or whatever, they didn’t or if they didn’t have the money, they didn’t. And that’s the way it goes. We do that a lot,” she said.

They also invite representatives from non-profits to come to the meetings to share their needs.

“We’ll have somebody come and talk to us. And if we know that they have something like that that they do, we’ll say, you know, gals, we have so and so coming next month, they have a food pantry. If you want to bring a few cans of food, it’d be great if we have that extra donation in addition to maybe the cash that we’re going to give them, which we usually end up doing for our speakers,” she said.

Replenishing the Hut of Hope at the YWCA is an ongoing project with the group. The “hut” is filled with toiletries, such as deodorant, shampoo and conditions there for anyone who needs those to help themselves.

“We got the idea at some point that that’s something we could do all the time. We could do that every month,” she said.

People bring items to the meeting and Dunlap puts them in the hut. They started doing that in May 2021 and since then they have donated 8,149 items in the Hut of Hope.

Up the street from the YWCA is Trinity Episcopal Church. They have a blessing box outside for non-perishable food for those in need to take. In 2023, WAWHO started contributing regularly to that. Dunlap noted that since then they have donated 4,133 items.

“It didn’t cost anybody a lot of money. That’s my point. By everybody doing a little bit, it really adds up. And when our agencies around us are needing to serve more and more people and they’re getting less and less funding, the more we folks in a small way can do, if everybody does a little bit, it can make a big difference and a big help,” Dunlap said.

“I’ve always felt from the very, very beginning that what we’re doing isn’t all that special. Anybody could do this. You know, you just got to do it. You just got to shut up and do it,” she said.