Junior League of Salt Lake City Sustainers come in 182 different packages: each one entirely unique, but all committed to the mission of the League to advance women’s leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration and training. Active members may not know much about the Sustaining members of the JLSLC since they don’t see them regularly at General Membership Meetings. But the Sustainers have a rich history of supporting not just the JLSLC but the entire community. Many Sustainers stay involved in other community organizations such as The Sharing Place, the Girl Scouts, or the United Way.

In order to fulfill new commitments to these worthy groups, Sustainers step back from day-to-day involvement in the JLSLC. They bring to these other organizations the skills they learned while volunteering at CARE Fair, Women Helping Women, past projects or while helping develop the JLSLC’s cookbooks from piles of recipes to a gorgeous bound book.

Many Sustainers parlay their JLSLC experience into leadership roles on the boards of other nonprofits. Their love for Salt Lake and its residents drives our Sustaining members to work hard to make the valley a better place for everyone.

The most recent JLSLC Sustainers changed their status from Active last June. The most senior Sustainers are lifelong members who are over 80 years of age. Clearly, the JLSLC has undergone many changes during their careers.

Terrell Dougan, who was an Active member in the 1960s, remembered their Flea Market project which helped fund the Columbus Community Center on the west side of Salt Lake City:

“Picture Junior League Provisionals in 1962, getting our picture taken for the Salt Lake Tribune. Some were seated on a loveseat, others standing. We all had white gloves on. Some wore hats. We were mostly homemakers. We had the time to invest in projects for the community, and we launched several projects, among them Columbus Community Center, donating $18,000 of the $28,000 we made on our huge Flea Market, held first in 1967, and again in 1968.

In a warehouse on the west side, we collected used clothing, purses, toys, books, baby clothes, shoes, jewelry and even silver (the sustainers had polishing parties!). We even had a hat booth! After two years of collecting, we got the Job Corps to come help move our huge inventory into moving vans donated by Redman Moving. They drove it to the Terrace Ballroom, where we set up clothing racks made by our husbands out of PVC pipe. Everyone who had card tables brought them for the booths. We set up four different restaurants, sprinkled among the booths, where you could sit down and have a hamburger or a pizza or other nationalities’ food, donated and run by local restaurants. We operated for three full days. People from the west side flocked into the Ballroom, where they could buy their kids’ shoes for $1.00, baby clothes for $3.00 or less, and onward like that. At the end of the three days, everything left was 25 cents.

As we were closing, a mother of three carrying two huge bags of shoes and clothing for her children asked me, tears in her eyes, “When are you doing this again? You don’t know what this means to me and my family.” Her husband had a large sack of his own, with shoes that fit him. He was grinning from ear to ear. I said, “This may be the last one we do because it engages our entire League for one project, and we have about 20 projects we have to service. But we thank you for coming and buying all this. Your money has contributed to vital services for the whole community.” They looked delighted that they had been able to contribute to the city and county. It empowered them and exhausted us, but in the end, we made $28,000 the first year we did it, and $32,000 the second year. That was the end of our huge project, but it brought all our members together for this one big effort. We made lifelong friends working on it. And I think it was the most fun we ever had, in or out of the League.”

Whether they were Active 10 years or 40 years ago, the League remains an important part of who these members are. “I still get together monthly for dinner with a group of fellow Sustainers. Seeing them reminds me of our hard but fun work in the past, and their current volunteer work inspires me to stay involved,” said Jennifer Gaskill, who became a Sustainer in the 2010s.

Although their League participation may seem limited in the eyes of Active members these days, today’s Sustainers have a love for the JLSLC with deep roots. We look forward to Active members joining our ranks when the time is right for them and showing them how to champion the League in a new way.