Dana White, SWC President was selected as the GFWC-NC Clubwoman with Heart award during the GFWC-NC convention held in Charlotte, April 2023. The award is given to a clubwoman who best exemplifies the GFWC Collect. Eight members as well as her husband (Mr. Brent White) traveled to Charlotte to support Dana’s nomination, selection, and “surprise” announcement of the esteemed award.
What is “A Collect for Clubwomen”?
Mary Stewart, a Colorado school principal, wrote the words to the Collect in 1904 as a personal daily prayer. Mary titled her poem “A Collect for Club Women” when it was first published because she felt it might have special appeal to clubwomen. According to Mary, “The first women’s organization to hear or use the Collect or to print it in its year books and biennial reports was the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.” Prior to her death in 1943, Mary Stewart’s own account of the history of the Collect was recorded. During GFWC President Dorothy Houghton’s administration (1950-1952), the American Home Department published Mary’s history along with an interpretation of the text and suggestions for using it in GFWC programs. The words for the Collect are as follows or visit GFWC-NC website to download.
Keep us, oh God, from pettiness;
let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.
Let us be done with fault-finding
And leave off self-seeking.
May we put away all pretense
And meet each other face to face,
Without self-pity and without prejudice.
May we never be hasty in judgment
and always generous.
Let us take time for all things;
make us to grow calm, serene, gentle.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses,
straightforward and unafraid.
Grant that we may realize it is
The little things that create differences,
That in the big things of life we are at one.
And may we strive to touch and to know
The great, common human heart of us all,
And, oh Lord God, let us forget not
To be kind!
