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W e d n e s d ay, N ov e m b e r 12, 2025
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Jan Risher LONG STORY SHORT
Lessons from my grandmother
PROVIDED PHOTO
Quota Baton Rouge members gather together to compile baby items for their mothers’ starter kits. They made 90 in honor of the club’s 90th anniversary.
Foundation of service Women’s organization has shaped Baton Rouge for 90 years
BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer
A group of Baton Rouge women is a testament to the power that comes with working together — despite the international organization folding in 2020 and the national organization closing in 2024. The Baton Rouge women carry on, along with other local clubs dotting the globe. They pool their time, talents and resources to help others. They have been doing so since June 1935, when 17 women gathered together at Anderson’s Tea Room on Fourth Street to do something good for their city. During the Great Depression, people were in need. Professional women of the city, led by respected attorney Frances L. Landry, started Quota Baton Rouge, a 90-year-old club founded on the mission of leadership and service. “Those were challenging times,” current Quota Baton Rouge president Laurie Allen said at the 90th anniversary celebration, “and yet these women got together and they said, ‘We cannot save the world, but we can do something in our small part of the universe to lend a helping hand, to bring hope, to bring comfort, and to some sunshine, where it’s desperately needed.’ ” The long history of service continues to sustain the club’s work. On Oct. 12, Quota Baton Rouge celebrated the organization’s 90th birthday and honored 24 past presidents at the Old Governor’s Mansion. The theme was the 1930s, which was represented in holding the event at the stately landmark built in 1930. “While we may dress differently and the things and activities that we do have changed and evolved,” Allen said, “we are still built on the foundation of selflessness, service, friendship and sharing. So that’s what guides us, and is the foundation of a bedrock that has sustained us for nine decades.” Quota Baton Rouge’s membership is comprised of accomplished professional women who are leaders in their respective fields. Though working and leading in diverse industries, Quotarians — the name for Quota members — share a commitment to service and purpose. After refreshments and a jazz serenade, Allen spoke about the club’s achievements and introduced Bobbie Carey, a member of Quota Baton Rouge since 1979, the owner and CEO of the Communication Institute, former Quota Baton Rouge president and former Quota International president.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY CAROL BEHRMANN
Past presidents of Quota Baton Rouge attend the group’s 90th birthday celebration on Oct. 12 at the Old Governor’s Mansion.
‘We share’ Nearly 16 years before Quota Baton Rouge began, Wanda Frey Joiner founded Quota Club International in Buffalo, New York. Joiner started the international service organization as a response to women’s involvement in World War I and to popular all-men’s clubs. While Quota International was still functioning, the Baton Rouge chapter was the only club in the world to have three of its presidents become international presidents. The club’s guiding motto is “We share,” and the name is derived from the Latin word, quota, which signified a portion or a share. Over the years, Quota has held firm to the commitment to serve women, children, and people who are Deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired. Quota’s early service projects sponsored Brownie and Girl Scout troops.
In 1939, Quota Baton Rouge partnered with the East Baton Rouge School Board and the federal government to establish the state’s first National Youth Administration clerical unit for girls. During World War II, Quota Baton Rouge created the first nursery school for defense workers’ children. Quota also helped establish YWCA in Baton Rouge. By the 1950s, Quota had expanded its reach with programs such as Aid to the Hard of Hearing, youth mentoring and emergency assistance funds for mothers and children. The long-running fundraiser, Open Door Tour of Baton Rouge homes, started in 1951 and lasted until 2006. Funds raised helped start the Baton Rouge Speech and Hearing Foundation, which is now the Emerge Center. Another event that raised money for Emerge Center
ä See QUOTA, page 2G
A few weeks ago, in the rubble of our house fire, I found the soggy quilt my grandmother made from scraps of clothes she’d sewn for me throughout my childhood. My grandmother was a seamstress. She made everything from wedding dresses with hundreds of handsewn pearls on long, frilly trains, to cheerleader uniforms with complicated red, white and blue pleats — and, on a more personal level, the majority of my dress clothes while I was growing up. Some of my most delightful childhood memories happened in fabric stores, where I loved mixing prints and textures — and enjoy it still. For her, fabric stores were social outings. She would talk to the women who worked there, including a woman we called “Aunt Beatty,” though I never understood how she was related to us. Meanwhile, I would wander the aisles, imagining the wonders we could make. In a world that didn’t have many artistic outlets, fabric stores were where my imagination could test its boundaries. To my grandmother’s credit, she would listen as I described the dress or outfit I saw and could usually see it herself — and she could take it one step further: She could make it. She had expensive taste and thrived on a pauper’s budget. She often reused zippers and saved every button that ever came her way. She repurposed clothing in ways that would wow “Project Runway” judges. I loved watching her create beautiful things. Working with my grandmother on an outfit took a special touch. She thrived on finding clever shortcuts and was a master at making do. She grew up during the Depression. Frugality was baked deep into her being. She loved to save fabric, even when there was plenty. Her thriftiness led to some legendary moments — like Christmas of 1989, when she gave me a cute organizer wallet that included a calendar. It was from 1987. Marie Kondo would make my grandmother’s head spin. I can’t imagine the level of absurdity she would attach to the idea of only keeping things that “spark joy.” My grandmother saved every scrap of fabric she ever cut, which often led to beautiful things — like the quilt she gave me when I graduated from high school, made from the clothes she’d sewn for me since I was a baby. I found it in the rubble after the fire — soggy, smoky, filthy, but, in her words, “with a good washing, it will be as good as new.” She knew joy often comes later — pieced together, one scrap at a time. She saw the potential in leftovers and pieces others discarded. These days, she’d be called a sustainability expert. Back then, we tried to keep her over-the-top frugality on the down-low. Working with her on a sewing project required patience — and veto power. She always had multiple, sometimes ridiculous, ideas for fixing problems. But she taught me there was rarely just one way to make something work. That lesson has stayed with me more than any stitch or seam. In the weeks since our house fire, I’ve thought about her constantly. Like me, she would’ve been sick over the waste of it all — the piles of things that couldn’t be salvaged, the ruined family photos. But she also would’ve found joy in the challenge of rebuilding, of finding creative ways to make things “as good as new.” And I find myself doing the same — sorting through the wreckage, saving what I can, imagining what beauty might come next — piecing life back together, one scrap at a time.