Violet Richardson Ward Service to Youth Award

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Violet Richardson Ward, the president of the first Soroptimist club Violet Richardson Ward Service to Youth Application

The Violet Richardson Ward "Service To Youth" Award is an award presented annually to the club with the most outstanding service project for youth. The award was established in 1968 and named to honor Violet Richardson for her interest in the betterment of youth. The award is presented by the Governor-elect at the annual Founder Region conference.

Thank you to the clubs who entered last year, of course you are welcome to enter again. To the clubs who didn’t enter last year, our members want to hear about your service projects for youth. We hope you will take time to complete the application and let other clubs in the region know of your projects for the youth in your community. You deserve to be recognized and honored for the activities you support so follow the steps below to submit one or more of your projects for consideration:

1. Determine which of your club projects for youth you will submit for the award. You can submit more than one project. Please use a separate application for each project. Send a picture of members participating in the project, if applicable.
2. Complete the award form (one for each project you want to submit). Be specific with the information about your project so the judges will have a clear understanding of what is involved.
3. Make three copies of your completed application
4. Send the completed applications on or before March 1st to:
   
   

   Amelia Benko, Governor-Elect Founder Region, SIA Address of record in Founder Region Roster

The original award, donated by Soroptimist International of Berkeley was a beautiful piece of Redwood burl and had an old Soroptimist pin attached to it. The pin of unknown origin was found at an estate sale by past Southwestern Region Secretary Dorothy Sarnes. The Redwood burl was used because Violet loved the Redwoods. There is a Redwood tree at our Soroptimist Grove named in Violet's honor.

Soroptimist International of El Pinablo was the first club to receive the award. Fifteen years later Soroptimist International of Alameda donated an accompanying plaque and had the names of all clubs who had received the award engraved on it. Each subsequent year each winning club's name was also engraved.

The original award and accompanying plaque were retired by conference action in 2002 in part due to the difficulty of getting the award and its plaque to conference each year. The original award was donated to the archives at SIA headquarters. Currently the winning club each year receives a special award certificate.