Since our founding in 1924, the Junior League of Spokane has promoted civic and community leadership among women by helping women gain experience as nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, and advocates. Originally founded in 1901 in New York City, the Junior League is one of the oldest and largest women’s volunteer organizations—empowering women to improve their local communities through volunteer action and leadership.

Recently, our League in Spokane and Leagues across the world have chosen to refine their Mission to be: The Association of Junior Leagues International is an organization of women whose mission is to advance women’s leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration, and training.

While part of a worldwide women’s movement, our mission is local and focused on a thriving and vibrant Inland Northwest. Over our history, the women of the Junior League of Spokane have worked to improve our community—including having a hand in the creation of many programs and other nonprofits that many people know and support today. A few representative examples include:

• District 81’s Express Program (originally known as Latchkey)
• The Innovia Foundation (originally known as the Greater Spokane Community Foundation and later the Inland Northwest Community Foundation)
• The Childhood Express (red wagon sculpture/play structure designed by artist, Ken Spiering)
• Embrace Washington’s annual Foster Santa Breakfast
• Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery

For nearly a century, the women of the Junior League of Spokane have collaborated to make meaningful change in the Spokane community—including having a hand in creating many programs and nonprofits that the community recognizes and continues to support today. Over the last year, we have collaborated, researched and determined a new focus of improving access to basic needs to alleviate sources of stress and increase resiliency for women, children, and families who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma.

During this League year, we will explore the different ways we can train our membership to impact our community under this focus area. We will again turn to our members to seek what they hope to gain from their membership and explore the collaboration, advocacy and project-based impact we can make on our community.

In the summer of 2017, I had a desire to pursue more meaningful community involvement and meet others with the same interests. I met women who became friends and mentors while also provided with the opportunity to attend several conferences across the country. It has been an honor to be viewed as a leader, be invited to represent the Junior League of Spokane at these conferences, and to be chosen as an investment by the League. It has become my goal to further train the women in the League this year to plan, collaborate, advocate, and feel empowered to make change in our community.

In addition to our new focus area, we are beginning Rolling Admissions to the League rather than having one or two new member classes a year. We believe that prospective members have so much to teach us and give us with their own personal experiences and skills. Each new member will complete a “passport” of competencies, be immediately placed to make connections with other members, and enrich the League with their individual talents.

We would like to invite all women who are interested in developing the skills to tackle the important work of our community to learn more about membership in the Junior League of Spokane. We would also like to invite the people, organizations, and businesses of the Spokane area to partner with us to support this vision—whether via financial gifts, advocating together for a just and equitable future, working jointly to build lasting coalitions, or joining our membership to make Spokane a better place to live, grow, and learn.

Respectfully,
Sorcha Coomes
President, Junior League of Spokane, 2023-2024