Annual Village Meeting

To start with you may ask...what is the Village?
The Village is low income housing for the elderly. The Village for the last 6 years has been working with the City of Norwalk Housing Authority to accept 100% Section 8 residents. The rent for singles is $552 and for doubles $652 but of this the resident only pays around $145-$250. The resident amount is decided by a ratio or precentage of the income they make.

Downey had eight (8) SI Downey members in attendance.
Bonnie Barler
Beth Crawford
Sue Potter
Sonal Mundhra
Whitney Wigle
Dorothy Pemberton
Judy McDonnell
Patty Kotze

And, as usual, we had a great time. Dinner was yummy - typical turkey dinner with all the trimmings catered by the Bellflower School District.

The finance report was given by Jane Dicus. Even with all the economic upheaval we are not far behind last year and we are repaying our Foundation debt. The debt was incurred when we renovated and updated the property.

The new Board was presented and honored with small token gifts.
President: Amanda Secola, SI Irwindale
Vice President: Laurie Lanham, SI Santa Fe Springs
Secretary: Marilee Marrero Stefenhagen, SI Norwalk
Treasurer: Veronica Thee, SI Alhambra

The premier viewing of the Village Video was awesome. The video prior to that was about 15 years old. We should be able to view the video as a group in January at a program meeting. It's very informative and gives you an appreciation for the Soroptimist village. You get to hear from the residents how appreciative they are for the Soroptimist and how much they enjoy living there.

We had a guest speaker last night! A Soroptimist member who recently passed away, Norma Long, was represented by her daughter, Judy. On behalf of her mother, Judy presented the Soroptimist Village and each participating Club with a cash donation from Norma Longs' estate. A very unexpected but pleasant surprise. Judy asked that each club consider using it towards scholarships because that was a particular passion of her mothers.

Overall a very informative meeting, tasty food, and great company.

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