Community Corner

IB Women's Club Lend a Hand Across the Community

The Women's Club gave grants ranging from $100 to $300 to local schools, Girl Scouts, junior lifeguards and others.

The Imperial Beach Women's League held a pot luck lunch and ceremony Tuesday at the Marina Vista Community Center to award more than $1,600 in grants to eleven organizations which include:

  • Imperial Beach Junior Lifeguards
  • Girl Scout Troop 5023
  • Imperial Beach Library
  • Imperial Beach Senior Center
  • The Art Kids of San Diego County
  • VIP Village Preschool
  • St. Charles Nutrition
  • Mar Vista Middle and High Schools bands
  • Mendoza Elementary School band
  • Silver Age Yoga Program

Over the course of a year, Women's Club fundraisers can range from a fashion show to an auction to garage sales and more.

"There's no way the city can do everything. Our budget is also going down and so on, so groups like yours really make this a community, and I just want to thank you for that," said City Manager Gary Brown.

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David Sheppard said the Women's Club has been support of VIP Village Preschool in the past seven years since he has been its director.

"It's getting harder and harder as it is in every aspect of our community, to run a program like the VIP VIllage. Last year we had our budget cut 37 percent," he said.

"There's no longer transportation of students in the morning, we had to cut two of our classrooms, four of our teachers and about 10 of our instructional assistants, so this money will be put to good use."

Part of money donated to the preschool last year went toward buying teacher's a microwave and this year's money will go toward maintaining the school's garden, Sheppard said.

Whitney Hanson accepted money on the behalf of the Imperial Beach Junior Lifeguards.

"Through donations from generous people like you, we were able to give 12 junior lifeguards this year full financial aid," Hanson said.

This year the summer junior lifeguard camp was extended from six to eight weeks and focused on enstilling accountability, competence and life lessons that "they can use their entire life."

Find out what's happening in Imperial Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"So kids who could barely swim 100 meters at the beginning of the summer had made it around swimming around the pier. It was unbelievable," Hanson said.

At the library, Women's Club funding along with a state grant heldped pay for Oneonta and Central Elementary School 2nd and 4th graders took part in the Passport Program. That brought them to the Sheriff's Department, City Hall, Fire Department and back to the library to research answers came back to library to research answers about the places they went.

"Of 193 kids who participated, 13.5 percent had never been in a library before," she said.

Money donated to the library will go towards its programming budget, not books, after the libary's programming budget was slashed, Engel said.

Marla Pinski is the instructor of held at the Marina Vista Community Center, and said more than 3oo students came to the last in the past three months.

"The most rewarding thing for me is when I hear someone say 'This helps my day, you know, I get to spend one hour and not worry about anything.'"


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