Community News

League of their own: Marietta Welfare League celebrates 100 years

MARIETTA - The Marietta Welfare League celebrated its 100 years of service on Tuesday at Marietta Memorial Hospital, home of the League Shop, established by the group.

Amy Elliott, lifetime member, gave a history of the organization and its contributions.

According to Elliott the organization was founded by 25 women "with a simple but powerful purpose, and that was to encourage interest in social and civic life in our community, and to provide efficient volunteer service."

"One of our most enduring examples of our impact began in 1938 with the creation of the Shoe Fund. In its earliest years, the league members had dances to raise money, and this became a blessing for 1000's of children over the decades that followed," Elliott said.

She said over the past ten years, the league has awarded 322 grants to the community totaling to approximately $600,000, not including the $125,000 grant to assist in the building of the Woman's and Children's Hospital on the Belpre campus. The group intends to donate $100,000 to needs in the community, in celebration for it's 100 year anniversary.

Scott Cantley, president and CEO of Memorial Health System, said "I truly want to say thank you, thank you to all of your members, but thank you to all your past members who have created this legacy that lifted this bar so high, and that continues to carry us forward. ... Thank you for 100 years of service to this community and we look forward to the partnership for the next 100 years."

Jillian Clark Stull, president of the Marietta Welfare League, said the organization's foundation is "helping the community, fundraisers and meetings, projects big and small, partnerships with other organizations and countless moments when somebody looked at the community and said 'we can help'."

Stull said by the league's 60th anniversary, members had contributed approximately 575,000 hours of volunteer service.

"Each of these hours represented something precious. Somebody's time, because it took people, it took women who wanted to help this community that did all that. Somebody decided there was something worthwhile they could do with an hour of their own life to make the life of somebody else better, and that ultimately is the legacy that we're celebrating today."

"The members who celebrated the league's 60th anniversary, could not have known exactly what 40 years would bring, and those of us gathered here today cannot know what Marietta will need in the decades ahead. Perhaps we don't need to know, because our history tells us that the particular need has never been an important part of the story. What mattered was that when the need arose, somebody was willing to answer it. For 100 years, that's what the Marietta Welfare League has done, and now it's our privilege and our responsibility to carry that tradition forward," Stull said.

Sophie Wheeler can be reached at swheeler@newsandsentinel.com.