The Zonta Club of the Santa Clarita Valley awarded nearly $16,000 in scholarships and community grants during its inaugural Awards Event held May 13. Committee chairwomen for this year’s scholarship and grant programs include Gloria Mercado-Fortine and Mary Ann Dortch, Young Women in Public Affairs; Phyllis Walker, Jane M. Klausman Women in Business; Alicia Estrada, Virginia Wrage Memorial Fund and Sharon Rodriguez, Community Grants.

Karen Maleck-Whiteley, Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley President, said the grants and scholarships have been presented at separate awards events by the club for many years, but this year the goal was to present all the awards at one event.

“We wanted to have a nice event and really honor our honorees,” she said. “We do a lot of fundraising every year so we can help women improve their lives.”

Zontian of the Year

Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley Vice President Michelle Woodfork was named 2014-15 Zontian of the Year. She

Left to right, Karen Maleck-Whiteley, Zonta Club of SCV President, Pat Willett, chairwoman of the Zontian of the Year Committee and Phyllis Walker announce the 2014-2015 Zontian of the Year. Photo by Michele E. Buttelman.

was selected for outstanding service to the club and the community and for the way she represents Zonta in the community. A family emergency prevented Woodfork from being at the event to accept the award in person.

Woodfork was nominated for the honor by four Zontians and was selected from a field of six nominees by a committee composed of former Zontian of the Year honorees, said committee chairwoman Pat Willett.

A member since 2009, Woodfork was elected first vice president-programs for 2014-15 and is currently the club’s acting second vice president-membership. She is a past secretary and in-house fundraising chairwoman for the club and has served on a number of Zonta committees, including Tribute and Lunafest fundraising committees. She also is a trustee of the Zonta Club of SCV Foundation.

In the community, Woodfork is an active member of the Saugus High School Boosters Club, assists Single Mothers Outreach, and participates in Zonta’s LifeForward workshops for women.

Jane M. Klausman Women in Business

Deborah Green was named the winner of the $2,000 Jane M. Klausman Women in Business scholarship. She is in the first year of her master’s degree program at American Jewish University. She will use her Zonta scholarship to pursue her master’s degree in nonprofit management, which she hopes to complete in 2016. She was graduated Magna Cum Laude in English Honors from Queens College in 1977.

“After many years as a stay-at-home mom and community volunteer, I reentered the job market and made a drastic mid-life career change from the corporate world to a nonprofit organization,” Green said in her application. “My goal is to take the skills and experience I acquired working in the for-profit world and apply that expertise to nonprofit management.”

Her personal goal is to pursue her passion for community service on a professional level while putting herself in a position of economic self-sufficiency. She currently is balancing a full-time job and five evening MBA classes, while supporting her daughter’s undergraduate studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.

Young Women in Public Affairs

Left to right, Mary Ann Dortch, Claire Sue Hyon Lee, Gloria Mercado-Fortine and Megan Schneider at the Zonta Awards Event.

The Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley Young Women in Public Affairs Committee selected two winners this year, one $1,000 winner who will advance to District 9 competition, and a runner-up whose accomplishments are being honored with a $500 scholarship.

Claire Sue Hyon Lee, a senior at Golden Valley High School, earned the $1,000 scholarship. She serves as the Associated Student Body president at Golden Valley and was elected by her peers to represent all Hart District students as the student board member on the district’s Governing Board this year.

“I am very passionate about community activism,” Lee said. “I can serve people, my classmates, my peers, my friends and my community.”

Lee hopes to study sociology “because this field is concentrated on the factors that develop society, and I believe that it is necessary to understand how our lives are structured and impacted in order to argue against or defend it,” she said. She eventually hopes to become a lawyer and work on the “many problems and issues in our society that need to be addressed with our existing legal system.”

Her community involvement included helping with the SCV Senior Center’s Thanksgiving dinner and working with the homeless in Tokyo, Japan, through her church.

Megan Schneider, a senior at Academy of the Canyons, earned the $500 scholarship. After graduation, Schneider plans to attend a four-year university and major in International Relations and Economics. After completing her bachelor’s degree, she is interested in pursuing a career in international service and joining the Peace Corps.

“I am very passionate about community activism,” Schneider said. “I can serve my classmates, my friends and my community.”

Schneider is the co-founder of AOC’s International Club, a student-run group that hosts weekly meetings focusing on different countries in an effort to raise awareness and cross-cultural understanding. She has traveled to Costa Rica and Panama in exchange/language immersion and community service programs and has worked with orphaned and disabled children and refurbished homes in a Nicaraguan refugee camp. Other volunteer activities include the SCV Food Pantry, Project Linus’ Make a Blanket Days for children, and the SCV Literacy and Arts Festival.

Virginia Wrage Memorial Fund

Virginia Wrage was a dedicated Zontian, mother, and grandmother who, at the age of 50, faced a family crisis that

Left to right, Alicia Estrada, Randy Wrage, Digna Yepez, Babe Ramirez and Mari Tovmasyan.

resulted in a major life change. During this time she applied for, and after a rigorous nine-month course, fulfilled a childhood dream of becoming a flight attendant for American Airlines. Two years later, Wrage was diagnosed with cancer. Before her death, she helped to plan this fund to assist other mature women make it through challenges such as those she faced.

Since its inception in 1995, the fund has assisted more than 35 women with grants ranging from $500 to $2,000. Many recipients are returning to school at mid-life to be able to support themselves and their children. Some are victims of domestic abuse, some are single mothers, some are struggling to complete a G.E.D. or college degree, and some are on the verge of becoming homeless.

Wrage’s son, Randy Wrage, attended the Awards Event to present the grants to three women have been chosen to share this year’s $6,000 Virginia Wrage Memorial grants.

Wrage saluted the Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley for their commitment in continuing the program that honors his mother.

“People say they are going to do something, but the Zontians really follow through. It’s been 20 years that the Zontians have been presenting these grants,” said Wrage. “That’s commitment to a cause. The Zontians give back to the community in a meaningful way.”

Mari Tovmasyan is a single mother who volunteers at the Domestic Violence Center, which encouraged her to apply for the Zonta grant. After a divorce and foreclosure of her home, she knew she needed to find a job to adequately support herself and her daughter. She chose a career in Occupational Therapy Assisting (COTA) because it would help her become self-supporting while assisting those in need of therapy.

“I’m overwhelmed at the generosity of the Zonta Club,” Tovmasyan said.

She plans to use her Zonta funds to enroll in the COTA program at Santa Ana College next fall. She currently is working on the prerequisites of Anatomy and Physiology at College of the Canyons so she will qualify for the Santa Ana College program.

The second Virginia Wrage Memorial recipient is Digna Yepez, who first heard about the grants at  Zonta’s Lunafest film festival. In the early 2000s, she faced several deaths in her family, a bout of depression and abandonment by her husband. She created a network of support by interning at Single Mothers Outreach, and also is working part time for Strength United, working with children in foster care.

“It is a great honor to receive this scholarship,” Yepez said.

She is enrolled in the Master in Social Work program at California State University, Northridge, and plans to use the Zonta funds to support her education. After graduation, she plans to pursue licensure, with a goal of opening her own consulting firm to support other professionals in the field as well as assisting home health agencies meet the special needs of their patients.

Babe Ramirez also heard of the Virginia Wrage Memorial Fund through Single Mothers Outreach. She became a single mother when her husband decided to leave her, with a son to care for. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in the Philippines, majoring in Accounting and Laws. She worked as a staff assistant and court legal researcher at the Supreme Court of the Philippines for 22 years.

She hopes to make a better life for herself and her son by returning to school to study medical billing and coding. She plans to enroll in the nearest Tri-Country Allied School, using her Virginia Wrage grant for tuition and expenses.

Community Grants

Left to right, Sharon Rodriguez, Philip Solomon of Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers, Linda Davies of Domestic Violence Center of SCV, Diane Bartley of American Association of University Women and Suzanne Alziebler.

Zonta’s Community Grants Committee awarded a total of $6,400 in grants to three community organizations which support Zonta’s mission of improving the lives of women and girls. The final winners were chosen from seven eligible applications received by the local club.

The Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers, Inc., will use its grant to support its program for low income women with diabetes. The program will offer routine healthcare appointments to help women manage their chronic disease.

The Zonta grant will cover the cost of healthcare for 15 encounters/visits for uninsured low income female patients with diabetes who cannot afford to pay the minimum fee for healthcare to manage their chronic disease, according to the grant application.

The Domestic Violence Center of Santa Clarita Valley also earned a Zonta Community Grant. The center will use the grant to create and facilitate six community workshops titled “A Woman’s Way to the Law.” The center expects at least 150 women to attend the monthly workshops, which will cover such topics as self-worth and protection, understanding legal rights, applying for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), preparing for court dates, and a network support system of survivors, advocates and community partners to help victims of domestic violence through the healing process.

This year’s third Zonta Community Grant recipient is the American Association of University Women, Santa Clarita Valley Branch. The grant will provide two partial scholarships for girls to attend Tech Trek camp, a weeklong residential science and math camp held on university campuses throughout California. AAUW has a goal of sending 18 girls from the Santa Clarita Valley to the camps held at California State University, Fresno, in June 2015 and at the University of Santa Barbara in July 2015.

Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley

The Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley was founded in 1974 and is a member of Zonta International, a worldwide service organization of professional women. Due to a rich history of philanthropic work around the world, Zonta International is recognized by the United Nations with consultative status. Zonta International boasts a membership of 33,000 in 1,200 clubs in 67 countries and with the mission of “advancing the status of women.”

The Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley hosts a monthly meeting held on the second Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m., Embassy Suites, 28508 Westinghouse Place, Santa Clarita, CA 91355. For more information visit www.scvzonta.org.