By: Mallory Pearce
In our Fall/Winter issue, we examined some of the Junior League of Charlotte, Inc.’s (JLC) earliest community focus initiatives that continue to impact many of our community’s underserved neighbors to this day. In this installment, we shift to the defining decades of the 1960s and 1970s. After years of civic effort and voluntarism, momentum continued to grow for the JLC and its members. The organization had already become a reputable and trusted fixture in the Charlotte area. Members contributed significant financial and volunteer resources to local agencies and projects that concentrated on the most critical needs in Mecklenburg County. That need came in the form of revolutionary activism in fields of mental health, education and the arts.
A newly constructed headquarters building provided an exciting start to the 1960-1961 League year. On the community focus front, $25,000 was provided to a clinical psychologist for the public school system. Additionally, funds were raised for various volunteer activities in the field of mental health over the following years. A Follies program, “Ever Since Eve,” netted $41,239 to raise money for these projects. As a tribute to their success in this endeavor, the JLC received The Charlotte Observer’s “Club of the Year Award” in 1963.
In an ambitious move following the JLC’s (first) “Club of the Year Award,” the membership voted to support another three-pronged project, “Education and the Arts.” The League initiated Junior High Concerts held at Ovens Auditorium, met a $20,000 challenge donation to build a new planetarium at the Nature Museum and expanded services for the community at the Mint Museum by contributing the salary of an Educational Curator. This led to the Mint Museum securing a professional Curator in 1965 and allowed for an expansion of JLC training programs. Cooking Mother’s Goose, a non-profit cookbook, was published for the first time, providing additional fundraising opportunities for the JLC.
The “Education and the Arts” project won the JLC another top prize in The Observer’s “Club of the Year” Contest. League sponsorship of the United Arts Council and of Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center – which the JLC still supports more than 60 years later – began in 1968. With a rise in substance abuse and addiction in the 1970s, the Drug Education Center for the City of Charlotte was adopted as a new initiative. A juvenile drug prevention program was made available to elementary schools for the first time. The Charlotte Drug Education Center was opened in September 1971. Additionally, the JLC Board of Directors was restructured, establishing four large community committees. This served as a catalyst to initiate the Voluntary Action Center, reactivate the Tree Commission and establish the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Environmental Quality Council.
The JLC reached a broader audience in the mid-1970s as it took its first public stand on an issue with other North Carolina Leagues: the passage of legislation to provide North Carolina with its first public kindergartens. Youth achievement remained central to the mission of the JLC, so the membership provided a speech pathologist for daycare centers in Mecklenburg County. To cap off the JLC’s 50th anniversary year (1976), the League released additional drug education programs, fundraised a sizable donation to Youth Homes Inc. and provided funding for the historic Berryhill House preservation.
The decade ended with celebration as the League surpassed $1 million donated to community initiatives. Project areas at this point centered on Child Advocacy, Spirit Square Arts for the Handicapped and Programs on Local History. Advocacy efforts urged historic designation and adaptive use of the Independence Building uptown. Volunteers committed to establishing a Collections Gallery at Discovery Place. Working with United Community Services, the Council for Children became a reality with a generous $47,000 grant. Thanks to trailblazing women, we continue to see several of these initiatives at work in the area.
