By focusing on the needs of women on a local level, the Green Hope women’s shelter club strives to ensure no one in the community feels alone or forgotten. Established in the 2021-22 school year, Green Hope students made it their mission to provide essential support and care to women facing adversity in the Triangle.

Club president Rose Rosaleen (‘24) explained her reason for founding the club. “I wanted to start the club because I noticed that there were a lot of service clubs at Green Hope, but none of them helped out women at a more local level,” she said.

The club mainly holds workshops where members create handmade crafts to give to the local shelter. “All donations go directly to the women’s shelter club in Raleigh, such as the cocoa cups for the holiday event,” Rosaleen said.

On Feb. 12, the club gathered to wrap and package individual roses to give to the women’s shelter. Rosaleen explained, “We do this every year and when people think of helping out the community, they only think about food and other necessities but being happy is also a necessity, so having little things is also nice.”

Members of the club gather for monthly meetings where they can sign up to bring food items or volunteer and serve meals to 40-60 women at a time.

“A really important aspect of this club is serving meals, especially during the winter season because there is more emphasis on serving warm meals for the community and often people forget that not only soup kitchens need warm meals, local shelters do too,” Rosaleen said.

Beyond just providing material assistance, the club lets these women know that they are being seen and valued, that they are not alone in their struggles. Rosaleen plans to continue running donations and volunteering, because “it’s really easy to help out those in need when a lot of support is involved.”