The women of Junior League team up with the community to support mission

Serving the community through effective action and volunteerism for more than 80 years, the Junior League of Shreveport-Bossier continues to remain committed to both the city and league members. Defined in their mission statement, the JLSB serves to improve the community and develop the potential in women and has a sole purpose to be educational and charitable. President Melanie Peacock joined the league in 2003 in search of an organization in which she could serve a meaningful purpose.

“I was looking for a way to really get plugged back into the community and find a place to volunteer and volunteer meaningfully,” Peacock said. “I wanted to develop more relationships with civic-minded and like-minded women, so I decided to join the Junior League.”

“The basic premise of the Junior League is that we identify a need in the community, we create a program to address that need and then [maintain it until] it can become an entity of its own,” Peacock said. “It’s amazing the things the women of the Junior League have started throughout history.”

The list of the league’s accomplishments is as long as it is inspiring. The JLSB established entities like the Rutherford House, Caddo Council on Aging, the Mollie E. Webb Speech and Hearing Center, the Lighthouse Program, Volunteers for Youth Justice and the Shreveport Family Welfare Association, which later turned into Community Chest that became part of the United Way.

Peacock feels honored to follow a long line of women who have helped to create programs that serve such a big purpose. She credits the league on preparing her for her new position.

“The training, education and placements you’re offered in the Junior League are more than adequate to prepare anyone to sit in this seat,” Peacock said. “And we’re structured such that we’re able to run the league effectively without it having to be a 40-hour a week, full-time job.”

The certified public accountant and mother of three recognizes that today’s league member faces new challenges in being committed to the community.

“The dynamic of the league has changed so much since I was a [new member],” she said. “The majority, at least half, of my [new member] class were new moms and might have been working part-time, but very few of us [worked full-time]. What we’re finding now is that 99 percent of the incoming new members work [full-time], and yet [they] seem to be more and more interested in making a very meaningful difference ... so you have to have the balance between what is a meaningful impact in our community and what is doable given the amount of time that we have.”

Peacock acknowledges previous president, Shelly Stone, with showing her it was possible to effectively run the Junior League while managing a full-time job and life. She said it all boiled down to planning and organizing and making use of any available time.

“We really try to structure our general meetings by keeping them to an hour and offering an educational component so that our members feel like they’ve really taken something away from it,” she said. “We have a meeting with a mission.”

Those meetings provide opportunities for the league to continue their commitment in serving the needs of the community in the most effective way possible.

“Our focus area continues to be women and families at risk, which is truly the families – we don’t exclude the men and the dads,” Peacock said. “[All of the programs] come back to, in some way, serving that population. That’s probably our biggest goal in terms of our future projects ... to hone our projects down to where we can see a measurable impact, specifically related to that focus group. And if it doesn’t fit, if our focus group isn’t affected by a particular project, then it either has to be revised, revamped or it goes.”

Always devoted to ongoing and current projects, the JLSB never stops discovering new ways in which to better serve.

“We have a ‘Project Research and Development’ [team], who are always serving the membership looking for new future projects,” Peacock said. “Although we’re very focused on making our current projects very effective, we’re also forward-looking. These group of women do nothing but look for and identify needs in the community and create new projects to address those.”

Notable events and projects in the Shreveport- Bossier City area are the bicentennial gift of the Red River Revel in 1976 in which the JLSB continues to have a large presence the donation of $60,000 in part of their 60th anniversary to help create Sci-Port: Louisiana’s Science Center, $75,000 for their 75th anniversary to the Pioneer Heritage Center at LSUS and 80 live oak trees that have been planted down Clyde Fant Parkway.

“[The live oak trees are] a gift to the city, after the need was addressed for more green space,” Peacock said. “The premise is we’re giving a gift that will keep giving for generations to come.”

Peacock said they have a number of projects in the works that are proving to be both significant and meaningful to all participating parties.

“[Between the Lines] is a joint literacy and family bonding program where we go into the prisons and we meet with a prisoner,” she said. “We bring a book for them to read aloud (for their child) and we record it to a CD. The book and the CD are then given to the child as a gift from the parent. It’s a literacy initiative from the standpoint of the child can read along with the parent from the book, and then also an initiative to strengthen the bond within the family while the parent is in an absentee state.”

“The ladies who have worked on [this project] have really found them to be impactful on both the league member and the person or family they’ve worked with,” Peacock said.

Another current project is their Domestic Violence Awareness program. Partnering with the Providence House to educate and raise awareness on the issue, Peacock said it was the statistics that made the issue so relevant.

“One in five women are abused in some form or fashion by someone they’re in an intimate relationship with,” she said.

Other ongoing and current projects include Hospital Bingo with children in local hospitals; Health Literacy Summer Camp; Safe Sitter, where middle-school-aged d students are educated and prepared to babysit; Super Safety Saturday at Sheriff ’s Safety Town, where they host a free health and safety fair for families; and the Red River Revel’s Artist for a Day and Kids in the Kitchen, where children are taught healthy eating habits and the importance of physical activity.

Projects such as those established by the JLSB take a strong group of dedicated volunteers who are truly committed to serving their community. The league has 211 active memberships and 527 sustainers. They are always looking for women who have the passion to volunteer and develop their own potential through their commitment to the families of our city. A full list of benefits and requirements on becoming a member of the JLSB is provided on their website at www.jlsb.org, where e an invitation to join can also be found. They are an organization on of leaders and of today’s women who have found a balance an in maintaining a full-time life and a devotion to serving the Shreveport-Bossier City community. •