AWI Occasional Projects
The AWI has engaged in hundreds of individual projects over the past century. The following list has been extracted from two of its organizational histories, and represents only a fraction of the many significant contributions made to local and provincial life.
1933: Mothers Bundles – the Great Depression presented suffering and starvation to many European pioneers in Alberta. In 1933, the AWI cooperated with the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE) and the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA) provided 500 mother’s bundles, or layettes, to mothers who could not provide for their newborn babies.
1937: Portraits of the Famous Five commissioned and then donated to the Alberta Legislature
1941: Emergency War Fund - $2000 sent to the Receiver-General of Canada to purchase physiotherapy equipment for military hospitals; $450 to Navy League of Canada; £100 to the Queen’s Canadian Fund for air-raid victims
1959: Citizenship Workshops –the federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration requested that the AWI cooperate with the government in offering a number of citizenship workshops. AWI arranged for workshops on Lethbridge, Taber, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Edmonton, Peace River, and Camrose.
1966: Portrait of Roberta MacAdams presented to Alberta Legislature in celebration of the 50th anniversary of women’s franchise in the province
1967: Centennial projects across the province celebrating 100 years since Canadian Confederation, including “renovating and refurnishing a one room school, dedication of cemetery gates, launching a community history, participation in pageants, presentation of a century of fashions, planting trees, quilting bees and quilt competitions…” (History Supplement, 25). In addition the AWI donated a $1000 scholarship for Social Work.
1971: Purchase of a Land Rover for an organization in Losotho working with rural women; donations to “Save the Sight” campaign to provide vitamin “A” to children in developing countries. In 1974, money was raised for six water pumps in an Ethiopian village. These are just three of many contributions by AWI over many decades towards overseas development work of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) and other organizations, especially where the goals was to provide clean water, school books and health care to women and their families.
Sources:
Wood, Cornelia. The Story of the Alberta Women’s Institute, 1909-1955 n.p. 1955.
History Supplement of the Alberta Women’s Institute, 1956-1975. n.p., 1975.