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Sherry McRill, JLD 2010-2011 President
JLD Mission for 2010-2011
As the incoming president of the Junior League of Detroit, we are celebrating 96 years of leadership development for women and 96 years of civic service to our Detroit community. I am humbled to have been afforded this opportunity to serve in a leadership capacity as we strive to improve the conditions of our community at large for the children in our region.
I am challenged and excited with the prospect of “The Road Map”---our AJLI Strategic Plan---which we will study and adopt to meet the long-term needs of our Detroit League. This is a significant time of change for volunteer organizations, including our League.
We will need to revitalize and refocus out commitment to our Signature Project, Literacy, within the 48215 zip code, and to the mission of our League: “To promote voluntarism, to develop the potential of women, and to improve the community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers.”
Our mission is just as compelling as in 1901 when Mary Harriman and a group of society debs started the first Junior League and decided to improve the appalling conditions of immigrants living in New York City tenement neighborhoods. At that time she said, “It seems almost inhuman that we should live so close to suffering and poverty, that we should know of the deplorable conditions and of the relief work that exists within a few blocks of our own homes and bear no part in this great life—stirring, suffering, moving all about us.”
Our mission today in 2010 is also just as compelling as in 1914, our founding year, when the first JLD President, Mrs. Paul Weadock, and 42 Detroit and Grosse Pointe area women initiated the first project, which was to provide a decent lunchroom for working women on Woodward Avenue near Grand Circus Park.
We have a proud history of firsts, including starting non-profit organizations such as Goodwill Industries, UCS Senior Center, Northeast Guidance Center, and job opportunities for youth, in addition to notable signature projects with other community agencies, which include the Detroit Children’s Hospital Poison Control Project, Children’s Television Workshop premier season of Sesame Street, Belle Isle preservation and Nature Zoo, Detroit Science Center, Orchestra Hall, Tutoring Tree, Cornerstone School, and Montieth Library, to name a few. Today our Signature Project uplifts and supports tutoring and literacy work in the 48215 zip code that includes the Montieth Library eastside tutoring partners and Carstens Elementary School.
The Junior League of Detroit has had a remarkable journey of service, training, advocacy, and collaborative partnerships to help families and their communities raise healthy children to become productive adults.
As a group of dedicated women, we have the energy, the expertise, and the leadership to better our Detroit community, to carry forward the bold vision of Mary Harriman and the early members of the Junior League of Detroit to be a significant force in the wave of social change that improves the lives of those who are the most vulnerable, those with the weakest voice, and those who are most in need.
Our diversity of opinions, respect for one another, and collaboration to reach a common understanding, has served us well for many years and will assist us in the future as we challenge ourselves to become change agents in our community and in our own organization.
I look forward to the support and talents of our Past Presidents, and our new Board of Directors and Leadership Team.
Thank you in advance of this exciting program year where we will strive to retain membership, focus on the needs of our children living in zip code 48215, and celebrate our success as a sustainable, renewable 21st century Junior League.
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