For 75 years, the Estes Park Quota Club has been an important community service organization, but the group also knows how to have a lot of fun, said Peggy Lynch who has been involved since 1987.
Lynch has served as the club’s president and is now the assistant treasurer to the foundation.
Quota Club has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years and bought 21 ambulances in addition to raising funds for hearing aids and speech therapy services for both youth and the elderly. Quota Club support has been shared with Estes Park Health, Salud, Partners, the Prospect Park Living Center, the Estes Park Library, and the Estes Park Museum.
Members of the Estes Park Quota Club will gather Saturday for a meeting and celebration to mark the organization’s history of community service.
The group’s origins stretch back to 1919 in Buffalo, N.Y. when a group of five businesswomen—Florence Smith, Alice Sauers, Ora Cole, Jean Ware Redpath, and Wanda Frey Joiner— attended a Kiwanis Club Christmas party. Because the Kiwanis was not open to women as members, the women decided to start their own service organization.
The driving force behind the club, Joiner, was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1882 and came to America at the age of nine. After just three years of marriage, Joiner was widowed. She enrolled at Canton Business College in Buffalo and went to work first as a clerk in a paint and glass company. Over the years Joiner worked her way into the boardroom and by the time she retired, she had founded two multimillion-dollar companies, serving as the general manager of one and president of the other. Joiner was involved in Quota until her death in 1968.
The founders were visionaries and feminist pioneers who incorporated the organization on Feb. 6, 1919, the year before the United States passed the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote and less than one month after the end of World War I.
They selected the name Quota which is Latin for a proportional part or a share. The organization’s motto is “we share.” And that is what the members of the group do. They share their time, talents, and treasures with their communities.
Quota became the first international women only service organization in 1925 when a chapter was founded in Canada.
In 1949, a group of women socializing at the Wheel Bar, which opened in the Josephine Hotel in August 1945, took inspiration from a line of dimes laid out on the counter for the March of Dimes campaign and decided that since there was no hospital in Estes Park at the time and no ambulance service, that they would fundraise to but an ambulance to get people who need help to a hospital down valley.
The Estes Park women reached out to the Quota Club chapter in Fort Collins to learn how they could become a nonprofit group in order to raise funds and on Friday, Dec. 14, 1945, the Estes Park chapter was chartered at a candlelight dinner with visiting Quota members from Fort Collins and Wyoming in attendance.
The Estes Park Quota Club began fundraising and bought the first ambulance in the early 1950s. Initially the group bought a new ambulance about every three years. Lynch said over the years the need expanded from one ambulance to a fleet of five, two to transport people to the hospital for emergencies, one to have on-site at an event such as the rodeo, one for transport down valley and a back up ambulance incase one of the others is out of service. “We cover all of Rocky Mountain National Park and Allenspark,” said Lynch.
In addition to buying ambulances, one of the club’s largest projects is a medical supply loan closet. Fundraising efforts include the annual Taste of Estes, the Duck Races, and Festival of Trees. In the 1970s and 1980s the group organized a Trike-A-Thon fundraiser in Bond Park, a wheelchair event on Elkhorn Avenue, and a zany talent show based off the popular Gong Show on television. “We’ve had a lot of fun over the years and had some pretty crazy things,” said Lynch.
In addition to the fundraiser event, the organization also does a mail campaign to solicit funds from donors. Because ambulances are expensive—costing as much as $100,000 to $250,000 today—the group also relies on grant funding to augment their efforts.
The organization has about 40 active members who meet twice a month from September through May at noon for a one hour meeting at US Bank Building. “We’re all too busy to meet in the summer,” said Lynch. Members volunteer to cover on-call hours at the loan closet which lends medical equipment such as crutches, walkers, scooters, and commodes to both residents and visitors at no cost.
All past and current Quota members are invited to meet at the Community Church of the Rockies Saturday, Oct. 5 from 2 to 4 p.m. for a coffee and cake anniversary celebration. A slide show recapping the past 75 years will be shown and then the group will move on to the Wheel Bar, “to keep up tradition,” said Lynch. People interested in attending are asked to RSVP, 970-214-6350.
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