Soroptimist International of North San Mateo County has provided service to our community for over 40 years. We have a service committee that recommends organizations to support based on how well they meet our core mission of improving the lives of women and girls.
- We participate in the 3 Soroptimist award programs awarding $3000 annually to deserving students and women:
- Soroptimist Women's Opportunity Award assists women who provide the primary source of financial support for their families and are improving their education, skills, and employment prospects .
- Soroptimist Violet Richardson Award is named for the President of the first Soprotimist club and honors girls between 14 and 17 who are making a difference through their volunteer efforts.
- Soroptimist Ruby Award: For Women Helping Women acknowledges women who are working to improve the lives of women and girls through their personal and professional activities.
The 2011 Women Opportunity Award winner is a single mother raising 3 children while working and going to school. She is planning to get a Bachelor Degree as a social worker and says "I'm teaching my children that we should never give up and the more education we get, the better person we are in society."
The Ruby Award Winner is Dr. Christine Case, who is renown in the community for her efforts on behalf of education, environmental awareness and young women. She has been a professor at Skyline College for over 35 years. Dr. Case is the founder and principal organizer of the annual Expanding Your Horizons Conference.
The Violet Richardson winner is a volunteer with the Start Now Program, which is part of the South San Francisco Learning Center. This year's winner helps the students and parents with their English to Spanish comprehension and she started volunteering in 2009, when she discovered that she really enjoyed working with the children.
- Regular beneficiaries of our club’s donations are Sitike Counseling Center, Safe Harbor, and CORA (Communities Overcoming Relationship Abuse).
- We participate in Skyline College’s “Expanding Your Horizons”, a math and science conference for 6th through 12th grade young women to learn about career opportunities in those fields. Our club paid the tuition for more than 100 girls from Fernando Rivera Middle School in Daly City and Parkway Heights Middle School in South San Francisco to attend the conference, provided their bus transportation and sponsored a workshop on financial literacy.
- For three years, we funded Project FRESH at the South San Francisco Library, which provided health and safety information to women and girls through health spas, personal safety classes and other programs.
- The first Saturday of March is Soroptimist Saturday of Service and we sponsored an event at the South San Francisco Library where we invited the public to help sew pillowcases for children with cancer.
If your organization could benefit from our service funds, please Download Service fund application and mail it back to us.
Globally, our international headquarters researches countries and causes where we can raise awareness and take action to make a difference:
- Soroptimists STOP Trafficking, a project that raises awareness about the sexual trafficking of women and girls, and seeks to encourage citizens, law makers and service providers to focus on this global problem.
- Soroptimist Workplace Campaign to End Domestic Violence, an awareness campaign that targets domestic violence as a workplace concern.
- Project Sierra: A Family and a Future, a partnership with Hope and Homes for Children to transform the lives of some of the most deprived women and children in Sierra Leone by providing support to young mothers, assisting children living on the streets and working to assist the most vulnerable families in the country.
