On Sunday 21 July lots of Members of SI St Albans and District, plus one husband and one daughter, ran the Club’s Charity Bookstall at the Sustainability Market Harpenden, organised by Sustainable St Albans https://sustainablestalbans.org/sustainability-market/. We had loads of second-hand novels and children’s books to sell.
This was a Soroptimist “orange day” – to raise awareness and take action to end violence against women and girls. As a bright and optimistic colour, orange represents a future free from the scourge that is violence against women and girls. We were also promoting our Orange the World campaign – 16 days of activism from 25 Nov to 10 Dec – click here to read more https://sigbi.org/st-albans/orange24/
We made £275 for the SAHWR Refuge supporting victims of domestic abuse https://sahwr.org.uk/. We also gained some exposure for our Club and raised awareness of our Orange the World Campaign. Soroptimists sent a big thanks to John Powell, Soroptimister and Harpenden Lion, who helped on the day, took leftover books to the Lions Bookshop in Hemel Hempstead and also got us extra money from selling some of the books online. Any books left over are donated to the Lions Charity Bookshop in Hemel Hempstead, and any books they can’t sell are pulped, so this is a perfect recycling project.
90 for 90
This year Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI) is celebrating its 90th anniversary. SIGBI is just one of the 5 Federations throughout the world. All Clubs have been challenged to celebrate by doing 90 things for 90 years – “90 for 90”, making it fun whilst standing up for and supporting women and girls. On the day we sold more than 90 books and created a literary display of 90 books!
This year we got publicity ahead of the event from Sustainable St Albans: https://sustainablestalbans.org/2024/07/11/sustainability-market-meet-the-stallholder-6/ and afterwards from the St Albans Times – p27 of the the Jul 25 Issue https://stalbanstimes.co.uk/