Altrusa of Gig Harbor is a non-profit organization whose purpose
is to enhance the community through leadership and service.
Other Projects
Million Dollar Cookie Challenge—October 2014
For the thousands of U.S. military service members that were still deployed in Afghanistan in 2014, months abroad included ceaseless stretches of boredom broken by the occasional flash of panic as they responded to enemy artillery. Altrusa Gig Harbor sent out a call to the Gig Harbor community for a "million" cookies baked with love. Community groups, area companies, and individual embraced the challenge and over 16,000 cookies were sent to the 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade in Afghanistan, where they gave our service men and women a taste of home.
Make Difference to a Kid—Make a Difference to Our World, October–December 2015
This book drive was so successful that Altrusa Gig Harbor was able to provide books for children through The FISH Bank of Gig Harbor, the Boys & Girls Club, the fire department for the West Pierce Santa gift delivery, Harbor Heights Elementary, and Goodman Middle School..
Holiday Tour of Homes, through December 2014
For 18 years, the Gig Harbor Holiday Tour of Homes served as the primary source of funding for Altrusa’s pledge of $100,000 to equip the commercial kitchen at the new Boys & Girls Club, annual scholarships for students of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, and ASK (Altrusa Serving Kids) for basic clothing and school supplies for elementary school children in the Peninsula School District.
In 2015 planning for our new initiative, Empty Bowls, took the place of the tour.
Purdy Purse Project—Bags for new beginnings
While Altrusa Club of Gig Harbor mainly serves the needs of children in the local community, when an unmet need presents itself, the club is glad to step up. When women are released from the Purdy Women’s Correctional facility they have a plastic bag with all their belongings inside. If there are no families or friends to meet them at the prison gate, they are left on the doorstep of the Gig Harbor Community to fend for themselves. Their resources are slim. Sue Braaten of the Best Western Wesley Inn started collecting purses, new and used, filled with things she knew they would need, such as toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, combs, a note pad and pen . . . things you find in the average woman’s handbag.
