The Avondale Ladies Guild is celebrating 53 years of service. Seated from left are Lydia Torrence, Willie Mae Ferguson, Eunice Rooks and Margie Cook. Back from left are Mary Ayers, Faye Stoudemire, Effie Jones, Edna Mitchell, Hattie Bryant and Julia Blankenship.If you've ever enjoyed the Avondale Youth and Family Development center, you can thank the Avondale Ladies Guild.
When the group formed in 1961, renovating and opening the center to an integrated community was its No. 1 goal. A year later, the plan came to fruition when the center reopened to everyone, and the group gained momentum as a service organization.
"We wanted to make the community safe and beautify it and we wanted to help the needy," said the group's founder Willie Mae Ferguson.
Over the last five decades the group has made its mark on the community and the city by getting the center revitalized, hosting Easter egg hunts and Christmas parties, providing Thanksgiving baskets to neighborhood families, organizing clothing drives, sponsoring children at the children's home, visiting nursing homes and fundraising for other projects.
As the guild celebrates its anniversary in June, the ladies said they hope to encourage new members to join and serve as an example of what can be done with a little hard work.
"If you have a problem, they need to get together as a group and address it," Ferguson said of her advice to the younger generation. "We were a group of young Christian women and we wanted to accomplish something, so we went to work to do it."