By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
MATAWAN — For the last century, the Woman’s Club of Matawan has been an important part of the local community and has been a prominent supporter and voice for civic betterment.
On April 4, the club will hold a celebration to recognize and reflect on 100 years of service and dedication to the community.
“It really is amazing what a group of 25 women can do,” said Cathy Savolaine, the club’s current president. “The amount of time that we give to different charitable activities, the number of dollars we give in terms of things that people donate, it is really far more than I think anyone realizes.”
It was October of 1915. Six women met at the home of New Jersey State Federation Board of Directors member Beatrice Stern to “found and maintain an organized center of cooperation among the women of Matawan.”
The Woman’s Club of Matawan was formally organized a month later and adopted the motto “Love, Loyalty, Cooperation.”
The club was accepted into the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs in January of 1916 with a charter membership of 39, and by the end of its first year, its membership had grown to more than 120.
“The first club of note was formed by a woman who was a reporter, and she was denied access to attend the second visit of Charles Dickens to New York City when her husband owned the actual newspaper,” former president Ann Quinn said. “She was told as a woman she had no right to attend, so she got very angry and formed the first woman’s club of note in New York City, and the whole idea was women were empowering and educating themselves and the very early clubs following her lead had names that really reflected their stand.”
The Woman’s Club of Matawan, which boasts 25 members today, is currently one of 201 throughout the state and is affiliated with the General Federation of Woman’s Clubs.
“There is a beauty about having different clubs with different ideas of what they want to do,” Quinn said. “Some may be interested in only doing fundraisers where another is only interested in doing projects … and it is when you put it together that you realize how much has actually been done.”
The 100-year history of the club is quite notable, Quinn said.
Along with awarding numerous scholarships, assisting the needy and bringing cultural programs to town, the club has played a prominent role in a number of campaigns for civic betterment including preparing a resolution to establish a local YMCA and helping to create Memorial Park.
“This club does an incredible amount of charity work,” Savolaine said.
“We work with the Menlo Park Veterans Home and collect items for them … and we go up and play miniature golf with them, which is a lot of fun.
“These are basically shut-ins, and they have a beautiful facility, and it is just fun to go and get people out of their rooms and have them come to something.”
The club also supports individuals at nonprofit 180 Turning Lives Around.
“We’ve worked with 180 Turning Lives Around for many years,” Savolaine said. “We create birthday bags, first night kits.”
The club also provides a “Wish Tree” in the Matawan-Aberdeen Public Library for books for the needy.
“That is to reach out to the community,” Savolaine said. “We ask people to bring a new book for a child, and our members who are very handy with knitting and crocheting make these ornaments for the tree, and people exchange a book for one of the ornaments and it is just very well received by the community.”
The club also creates blizzard bags for shut-ins during inclement weather, sponsors food and clothing collections and presents a “Girl of the Year” award to a Matawan-Aberdeen High School senior.
“You look across a club of 25 ladies, and some like to do one thing, some like to do another and so you kind of say ‘what do these people like to do’ because then they’ll do it well and we seem to have a good cross-section of people who like to do a range of things,” Savolaine said. “So these fundraisers turn out to be a lot of fun because people are working in areas that they like.’
Savolaine added that the club also has members of various ages.
“Most people tend to associate with others their own age, but the club isn’t like that,” she said. “We have a range of ages and generations, and I think that is interesting because they bring different perspectives to problem-solving and activities.”
Recording Secretary Sue Grove said this will be her fourth year as a member of the club.
“This is my first experience belonging to a club,” she said. “I had just moved to New Jersey from Brooklyn and I was looking for connections and … I was really taken with the women who are here.
“I did not consider what the club was doing so much as just being involved with the community, and we do a lot and I have really enjoyed working with the women, and the history of the club and the women is incredible and it was really intriguing just to learn about.”
Savolaine said while it is known as the Woman’s Club of Matawan, the current membership has women from many area communities.
“It is not restricted to Matawan, but really this whole general area,” she said. “We have women from Hazlet, Keyport, East Brunswick, Marlboro, Manalapan, Holmdel.”
Grove said as she becomes more involved with the club she has learned a lot about the characteristics of the individual women and their unique ways of doing things.
“The women, whatever they are doing, they come together … whatever the project or fundraiser is, these women are incredible about working together, helping in all ways,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot about myself in just hearing about the lives and situations that these women have experienced.”
On April 4, members of the Woman’s Club of Matawan will hold a Federation Day celebration at their 140-year-old clubhouse at 199 Jackson St., to recognize their 100th anniversary.
“This building has as much history as our club does,” Quinn said. “It is an old building, so it does sometimes cause us angst.”
For many years club meetings were held in members’ homes, local schools and other locations.
The idea of having a clubhouse to call home was agreed to, and for years local properties were investigated.
The current clubhouse the group uses for meetings and events was once known as the Lecture Hall, the only remaining structure of the First Presbyterian Church in the borough that burned down in 1955.
The property was purchased in 1963 and reorganized as the clubhouse, and a gala Dedication Day and official grand opening was held in April 1964.
“A lot of the fundraising that is done by the club is used to keep this building,” Quinn said.
“We actually in 2005 had an Eagle Scout do his project here, and he repaired the plaster walls, painted the shutters and even painted the entire room.
“It was a good start to trying to do some renovation on this building that was definitely in need. We have to keep doing some fundraising to keep the building and keep it as an attractive building.”
