Our Exemplary Volunteers — JLG at 50

By Donna Moffly

(page 1 of 5)

In May of 1989, in the pages of this magazine, we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Junior League of Greenwich (JLG). Betty Hinckley, the wonderful realtor who would become its first president, told us how it all began.

On a cold February morning in 1959, Betty answered her door in Riverside and got one of the “biggest thrills” of her life — a telegram from the Association of Junior Leagues of America (now AJLI for “International”) announcing that the Greenwich unit had become a full-fledged charter member.

In the early days, she and 135 other young Greenwich women had to trek to Stamford to put in their volunteer hours with the big Stamford League. But determined to have one of their own, they had petitioned AJLA and had agreed to an experimental arrangement — later to be copied by many little would-be Leagues around the country. They would serve as a unit of Stamford until proving themselves worthy of independence. It had taken five years of hard work before that doorbell rang and they were finally sprung free. Betty then flew up to the annual international League conference in British Columbia, where a huge map of the United States hung on a wall, the sites of the Junior Leagues pinpointed with tiny lights. She remembers going “all goose bumpy” when they called the roll of new members and Greenwich, Connecticut, lit up, making ours the one hundred ninety-second League in the world.

Today, headquartered in a handsome house on the Post Road, the Greenwich League numbers over 800 members — that’s out of 160,000 in 292 Leagues in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States — and its contribution to this community has been enormous. League projects have included some of the organizations we know best and can’t live without: Den for Grieving Kids, Community Centers, Audubon, Community Answers, Kids in Crisis, Tutoring Service, Youth Employment Service, Alcohol Education, Marine Discovery Room, Domestic Abuse Service, Child Care 2000, Greenwich Cotillion, Parents Together, Pathways, Woman to Woman, Group Living for Independent Elderly, Teen Pregnancy Task Force, Task Force on the Homeless, AIDS Awareness, Done in a Day, Safety Town, Conference on Aging, Boundless Playground (in Bruce Park) and on it goes. Mary Harriman, the debutante with a social conscience who started it all in New York City in 1901, would be flabbergasted.

To celebrate our Junior League’s fiftieth anniversary this month, GREENWICH Magazine decided to profile fifty women as examples of the many members who have taken their League training and talents out into the community and done what they are meant to do — put them to work. It was a tough choice: We found so many remarkable people that we could run fifty a month for the rest of the year. But we tried to narrow it down by including different ages (from eighty-plus Sustainers Emeritus to Actives in their twenties) and interests (from child care to cancer research). Among the women, listed alphabetically, there are fifteen JLG presidents and thirty winners of JLG awards, twenty recipients of the YWCA Spirit of Greenwich Award and three of its BRAVA Award, along with two Greenwich selectmen. All fifty are still actively involved in our community.

Over the years, Leagues across the nation have included such illustrious members as Eleanor Roosevelt, Sandra Day O’Connor, Eudora Welty and Katherine Hepburn. And, likewise, the Junior League of Greenwich is composed of accomplished women in every field — from law and banking, to education and medicine. If they have children, you can bet they are over at those schools pitching in to make things better.

Says JLG President Sheila Keatinge: “Day after day, we train talented women to go out and make a difference in our community.” Past President Susan Wohlforth adds, “We are ordinary women doing extraordinary things.”

Maxine Armstrong

A JLG member since 1986, Maxine attributes her success in founding and helping run REACH Prep (1994–2007) to her Junior League training. And we all know what a success the program has been in preparing bright minority students for placement in independent schools.

But then, Maxine has been a longtime community leader, whether curating a show at the Hurlbutt Gallery or chairing a Historical Society House Tour or hospital designer showhouse. If the Bruce needs help on its Renaissance Ball or the Breast Cancer Alliance on its fashion show, she is there.

Besides working on the upcoming REACH benefit and the YW Old Bags Lunch, Maxine is now committed to the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, raising awareness and cultivating donors. Another home run in the making.

Sue Baker

I’m lucky that my educational expertise and JLG background are so compatible and mutually productive,” says this marine biologist who is the Sustainer advisor to League committees on the environment and education.

Susie taught Honors Oceanography and Marine Biology at the high school (1980– 2004); before that, biology at Eastern Junior High; and upper school science at Whitby; and as part of the PTA enrichment program, she teaches oceanography and marine science to our fifth graders. Then there are all those boards like the Teen Center, Avon Theatre, SoundWaters and Greenwich Point Conservancy along with the town Conservation Commission, Shellfish Commission and Environmental Task Force for Pesticides.
You can’t miss Susie. She gets where she’s going behind the wheel of a little silver Lafa convertible.

Belinda Benincasa

I attribute my professional career path to be a direct result of my years with the JLG,” says Belinda, a courageous and capable woman if there ever was one.

For the JLG, the lifelong Greenwichite has overseen huge projects like Playground Pals rebuilding Bruce Park Playground, and Child Care 2000, a five-year, $3 million undertaking. She has served on many community boards and committees, including the First Selectman’s Committee for People with Special Needs. Professionally, Belinda has been a media supervisor at Young & Rubicam, executive recruiter in philanthropic fundraising positions at Ast Partners and director of development at the Boys & Girls Club. Oh yes, she has coached Greenwich Youth lacrosse.

Today Belinda is doing an amazing job as executive director of the Breast Cancer Alliance.

Susan Bevan

I’m a dilettante,” says Susan with a laugh. “I can’t say no to anything.” That includes opening her lovely home for good causes from St. Luke’s Lifeworks to Greenwich Hospital and the Russian Orchestra.(Her record is three benefits in twenty-four hours).

Former editor of the DePaul Law Review, Susan practiced commodities, securities and corporate law before joining the JLG in 1991. Her fundraising capability is well known, be it for the Historical Society, Breast Cancer Alliance, Stamford Center for the Arts or the Boys & Girls Club where she co-chaired a $15 million campaign. She received the 2004 YWCA Spirit Award and the 2007 Community Impact Award from Planned Parenthood of Connecticut.

Today Susan, new cochair of the national Republican Majority for Choice, sits on numerous boards, including the Bruce Museum, Greenwich Library and our own editorial advisory board, where she contributes untold story ideas without missing a stitch in her needlepoint.

Julia Boysen

The League was a way of meeting like-minded women and being introduced to the volunteer needs of a new community,” says Julia, who belonged to several Leagues before moving to Greenwich. “Wherever I was, I could count on it to be well-organized, effective and not waste a volunteer’s time.”

And here’s a volunteer (once a banker) who doesn’t waste time. Believing fervently in the mission of the YWCA to empower women and eliminate racism, Julia has been deeply committed to the organization and won its Spirit of Greenwich Award in 2006. This modest team player has rolled up her sleeves for SoundWaters, Greenwich Adult Day Care, Round Hill Community Church and Greenwich Fingers Garden Club.

Now over at United Way, Julia is chairing the residential campaign. What do you bet she makes her goal?

Sunny Brown

Having joined the League in 1948, Sunny is an honored Sustainer Emeritus and is still going strong in the volunteer arena.

Her early JLG activities included the Hospital Thrift Shop and Pryor Doll Library and, later, Childcare 2000 and the distribution of food for the needy, winning her the JL Award for Volunteer Excellence. In between, she was a partner for sixteen years in the Elements Gallery, a contemporary American crafts shop here. Oh yes, she went on to receive the 2003 Spirit of Greenwich Award and the 2005 Betty Hinskley Award.

Today, Sunny is treasurer of the English-Speaking Union and is still involved with Greenwich Adult Day Care, League of Women Voters and Vassar College. She has to admit that the Vassar Alumnae Travel Program she coordinated in the nineties was “the best volunteer opportunity ever!”

Kath Burgweger

Maybe the handwriting was on the wall back in 1985 when Kath joined the JLG. Her placement was all about the elderly and now she is president of Greenwich Adult Day Care.

But Kath, winner of the 2002 Spirit of Greenwich award, is a well-known volunteer in other areas, too, like ARC, the United Way, Community Answers (president 2006– 2008) and especially the League of Women Voters. As LWVG Voter Services VP, for many years she was responsible for voter registration drives, debate forums, ballot issues, election night reporting, you name it. Now she chairs the LWVCT Budget Committee.

Today Kath is the proud helmsman of GADC’s new River House overlooking the Mianus — a place filled with busy happy clients and a dream come true.

Patricia Burns

If anybody knows how a League operates, it’s Patricia. Having joined in New York in 1971, she transferred to Houston, Phoenix, Birmingham (MI) and San Francisco before landing in Greenwich just in time to chair the first Enchanted Forest.

Patricia has taken up many causes from girls’ clubs to animal assisted therapy. Here, she has been president of the Parkway PTA, a member of various boards and is cochair of the United Way Women’s Initiative/Sole Sisters. She was once director of Fragrance Product Development for Estée Lauder, which is why we get lipstick in our goody bags at the Sole Sisters lunch.

Today, Patricia is president and CEO of the Friends of Nathaniel Witherell. Believe me, this lady is there if you need a job done right. She’ll even answer her cellphone from a ski lift in Colorado.

Nancy Caplan

Grass does not grow beneath this lady’s feet. Nancy has chaired the Enchanted Forest for the JLG and won its Outstanding Volunteer Award. She managed Lin Lavery’s campaign for selectman. She is president of the Greenwich Parks & Recreation Foundation, a longtime Girl Scout leader and a Saturday morning volunteer at Adult Day Care with seventeen- year-old daughter Jennifer. All the while working full-time in financial management at IBM.

Now Nancy has taken the JLG Done in a Day project into Greenwich High School, working with Jennifer to recruit teams of kids for such things as food drives. “I view my years in the JLG as a partnership with my family,” says Nancy. “The DIAD Club will bring my League experience full circle and help transition my active role to my daughter.” Good thinking, Mom.

Amanda MacGruer Davis

This is one busy civic-minded lady who always manages to keep her sense of humor.

A Greenwich native dedicated to volunteerism for over twenty-five years, Amanda served as JLG president in1992–1993 and then on the Sustainer board. Her business career in marketing, advertising and publishing included some years at Greenwich Magazine; and out in the community she has made an indelible mark in the nonprofit sector. She was chairman of the Red Cross board for three years, and on the boards of the YWCA, United Way, Kids in Crisis and Breast Cancer Alliance, the group that nominated her for the YWCA Spirit Award in 2005.

After chairing the United Way Sole Sisters lunch last May, Amanda (with husband, Bob) agreed to take the helm of United Way’s 2009 campaign.