By Renee Larr
Marilyn Parrish learned of the nonprofit Helping One Woman from a friend who lived in California. She thought it would be a good fit in Carmel and recently launched a central Indiana chapter.
“(My friend) was on her way to a Helping One Woman meeting. She sort of gave me the Readers’ Digest version of it. I looked it up online and was impressed with the simplicity of how it worked,” Parrish said.
The group’s motto is: “One woman with $10 can buy another woman lunch. Ten women with $10 can buy another woman’s groceries. One hundred women with $10 can make a real difference in another woman’s life.”
Each month the chapter hosts a dinner to raise funds to donate to a recipient. Attendees are often friends and relatives of the recipient. At the dinner, the attendees choose the next recipient.
“We pick a recipient each month to honor the next month. It’s always a woman going through an irreplaceable loss,” Parrish said. “It’s kind of like a girls night out event. Every dime we collect goes to the recipient. We just have a dinner and invite all their friends and family. Everyone puts a minimum of $10 in a pot.”
Recipients can use the funds as they see fit. Sometimes the money is used to pay medical bills. Sometimes it’s used for a family getaway.
“The money isn’t why we get together. Typically, we don’t know the recipient. We gather to show one woman a month that people care,” Parrish said. “We’ve been very happy with the results. The recipients have been uplifted that strangers came to care about them.”
The dinners serve two purposes. Not only do they fundraise for the recipient, they also give attendees a fun night out.
“It’s really meant to be more of a fun evening. A lot of these recipients can’t get out. It’s meant to take them out of their drama and have some fun,” Parrish said.
Helping One Woman meets the third Thursday of every month at the American Legion in Carmel. For more, contact [email protected] or 317-804-1334.
