As the club enters its third year, Women’s Aid Society plans to offer more initiative as a club by scheduling speakers, a self-defense class and helping charity organizations.
Women’s Aid Society advisor Michelle Ruch has been running the club for two years after a student from her Women in Literature class wanted “to do a little more to give back.”
Vice president Emma Horos said the club has had some difficulty in enacting suggestions made by officers and members. “We’ve had a past of having a lot of ideas, but not getting a lot of it done in our former years,” Horos said.
However, Ruch was happy with the “initiative and direction” the officers put in the club this year.
The club went on their first field trip earlier this year to a local foundation for volunteer work.
“We went to the center for Jenna’s Blessings Bags and put together a bunch of backpacks for homeless people,” president Emily Clemens said.
Members of the club collected comfort items, hygiene products and food to distribute to the homeless.
Along with their volunteer work, Women’s Aid Society has a guest speaker opportunity coming in on December 11, according to Clemens. The event will feature a state trooper, engineer and a lawyer.
“They’re going to come in and talk about working in male-dominated fields,” secretary Andrea Flores said, “and their experience in that work environment.”
The club is mostly charity-oriented, but the speakers still provide an extra layer to what the members do when volunteering.
“The idea is to create an empowering space to help women in need,” Clemens said, “so we can give the students here some motivation or inspire them and use them to go help women in need.”
According to Ruch, she hopes that the guest speakers inspire female students to enter more male-dominated work spaces.
The club also hopes to bring in a local self-defense instructor in the future to host a class for students. “Since we had [a] lady who came in for domestic abuse, we thought that a self-defense class would be really fun to do,” Flores said.
In the past, they’ve had a speaker from Doylestown who spoke about domestic violence at the teenage level.
The event brough 80 students together to learn how to identify toxicity in relationships.
“We think of women just being battered, but often that type of control sometimes starts when people are in their teen years,” Ruch said. “There can be a lot more emotional and physical control that happens with teens.”
The club also hopes to create a supportive environment among members through bonding activities.
