Celebrating Women's History Month by honoring local women

Every March, Women's History Month provides an opportunity to honor the generations of trailblazing women and girls who have built our nation, shaped our progress and strengthened our character as a people. According to a statement on its website, the NWHA encourages communities throughout the country to honor local women who bring and have historically brought priceless gifts to their families, workplaces and neighborhoods, sometimes at great sacrifice. These are the women who, as counselors and clerics, artists and teachers, doctors, nurses, mothers and grandmothers listen, ease suffering, restore dignity and make decisions for our general and personal welfare. The Tiffin Community Foundation was created in 1983 and Jane Frost Kalnow was the only woman to serve on the original Board of Trustees. Jane was one of the wealthiest women in the history of Tiffin. She was a philanthropist whose dedication to numerous causes in her community can still be seen throughout Tiffin today. It has long been a dream of The Tiffin Community Foundation to have a Fund designated to engaging local women to discover their power to affect positive change to the lives of women and girls in Tiffin and Seneca County. In 2021, Phyllis Watts was delighted to open The Double W Empowerment Fund to honor local women with grants empowering them to dream their dreams and bring about positive change. This fund will also provide an annual scholarship to a hardworking female student from New Riegel High School. Phyllis Watts, born to parents of Appalachia who did not graduate from high school, has certainly chartered a new path being the first woman to graduate from New Riegel High School and earn a PhD. Phyllis credits the community of women she met at The Ohio State University through the office of Women's Studies for changing the path of her life. She was the first person to earn a PhD with a concentration in Women's Studies from The Ohio State University. Since retiring from Tiffin University in 2016, Phyllis now works part time for the OSU Athletic Department and volunteers as a Chamber Ambassador in Tiffin and for The Mazza Museum at The University of Findlay. Her devotion to education and helping others has led her to create this donor-advised fund to pay it forward. Our newest fund at TCF is The Tiffin Women In Action (TWIA) Fund. This fund has been created to support women and children's organizations in the Tiffin Community. TWIA, formerly Tiffin Y-Wives, was established in 2021. The Y-Women were unable to meet during 2020 due to the risks of the COVID pandemic. This hiatus gave them time to reassess how they could better serve the Tiffin community by expanding their focus to the women and children of the entire community. TWIA will continue to host the Tiffin Holiday Extravaganza craft show as their major fundraiser. Contributions will also be accepted to the TWIA Fund of Tiffin Community Foundation to support their mission. The group meets at noon on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the Tiffin Eagles and is always ready to welcome new members. For more information, contact tiffin.wia@gmail.com. The Gase Family Literacy Fund created in 2018 honors the work of Dolly Parton, who created the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to provide monthly books for children 0-5 years of age. With the support of local donors, Anne Gase has made it her mission to make these books free to all children in the 44883 zip code. In 2019, Ohio Gov. DeWine's wife Fran made it her mission to see that every child in Ohio has access to these books and the remainder of Seneca County receives these books free now through the generosity of North Central Electric Co-op. The Foundation has many other funds created by female philanthropists in Tiffin. Stop by our office and view the pictures on our walls of great women who have changed the course of history in our community. Currently serving on our Board of Trustees are Jennifer Musgrave of Tiffin City Schools, Makenzie Weininger of Weininger Family Dentistry and Francine Neal representing Tiffin YMCA. We are also grateful for the leadership of Janet Shutt and Debbie Gerschutz who volunteer their time to support our work. Tiffin Community Foundation is proud to honor all of the women who have made our work possible in Tiffin and Seneca County. Reinbolt is executive director of the Tiffin Community Foundation.