Alcoa Action Day with Howmet and Sterling

Ten days before our annual membership party at the mill, Alcoa donated another Action Day to AMP. After a long winter and early growth spurt this spring, volunteers from Howmet and Sterling came out with rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows, and weed whackers to clean up around the outside of the mural building. In a long afternoon of work, they filled an entire dumpster with debris.

I say this every time but there is no way we would be making headway without the help we receive from Laurie Roy at Howmet and John Lavieri at Sterling, not to mention all the volunteers who continue to support and believe in the project.

Ellen speaks at General Federation of Women's Clubs National Convention in Omaha.

On the second weekend in June, Ellen spoke to those attending the National Convention for the General Federation of Women's Clubs about AMP. With an extremely strong support group of GFWC members from Connecticut, Ellen and the AMP cheerleading squad spoke with almost every attendee at the convention about the project, asking for their support in each state. The attendees were enthusiastic about AMP's national fundraising project, introduced at the convention: the GFWC Watch Project, on which AMP will collect watches for the mural, symbolizing the time women's club members have given as volunteers, from each of the 110,000 national members. Kim Hohlfeld and Judy Albright are taking on the organization of this collection project through all the state women's club presidents.

Great thanks to the Connecticut members of the GFWC who attended the convention and stood by for three days helping Ellen in every way imaginable, from watching the AMP booth and explaining the project to state representatives, to keeping her entertained during the 'off' hours. While other states chose to dress formally for their state group portraits, Connecticut chose to be photographed in AMP t-shirts!