Women’s Circle inspires Sandpoint to pay it forward

Last fall, millions of Americans watched Oprah Winfrey start a “Pay-it-Forward” program on her show.

She gave each person in the audience $1,000 and a challenge. They were to use it to make a positive difference in someone else’s life, and they only had one week to do it. Some used the money to buy Starbucks gift cards, and handed them out in the streets of Seattle. Others bought bus tickets and gave them to strangers who rely on public transit. Many used the money to start a fundraising campaign for their chosen cause – two sisters managed to raise $200,000 to help a women’s shelter in Chicago. One woman earned $70,000 to help buy a home for the family of a man with a terminal brain tumor.

Good deeds flooded the U.S. from coast to coast, not only from those in Oprah’s audience that day, but from people who watched at home; from people who talked about it in the streets and restaurants. Word spread and “Pay-it-Forward” projects started popping up everywhere.

The Women’s Circle of Sandpoint consists of a small group of ladies who have met weekly for 15 years. Each week they put their loose change into a jar, and when it’s full they choose a local cause to help.

“We’ve donated to different local charities,” said Lois Miller, a longtime member of the group. “It doesn’t always amount to much, but this time we had $100. During Circle one day we watched Oprah’s pay-it-forward show, and we were so inspired by what some of those people did that we decided to pay it forward with our little $100.”

They chose to help the Panhandle Special Needs Inc., a rundown building for mentally and physically handicapped people where Miller works part time.

“It’s our goal to see the old building on North Boyer have a complete makeover, which is sorely needed,” Miller said. The ladies’ vision includes an updated kitchen, new bathrooms, new carpeting and many other improvements. “All of this will make PSNI nice and warm and comfortable, instead of that old machine shop they’re in,” she said.

They sent out letters and announced their pay-it-forward project in the paper, asking people to jump in and help any way they could. The public rose to the occasion. People called and dropped by with offers to help, not only with monetary donations, but labor and building supplies as well.

“One man came in with a crock full of loose change,” said Miller. “My husband counted and packaged it, and it came to $555.26. The guy just came in and handed it over.”

In six weeks these ladies turned their $100 of coin into $7,000, plus pledges of carpeting, plumbing supplies and labor, architect services and lumber from area businesses.

“We’re really jazzed,” said Miller. “We’re all grandma’s and great-grandma’s. I mean, we’re no spring chickens,” she laughed. “People aren’t really aware of all Panhandle Special Needs does,” said Miller. “There’s 40 percent new population in Sandpoint and most of them have never heard of it. They’re (PSNI) always kind of in the shadows, and we want to get their name out.”

But the patrons of PSNI and their families know just how important this group is.

“My son, J.D., is disabled, yet had a great desire to move out on his own, like his brothers and sisters,” said Rosemary Gwaltney of Sandpoint. “I never thought he had a chance as he was growing up, and felt sad about it. Our family is limited with our abilities to help him in town. We live in a remote area in the mountains raising sheep.”

But life skills training at PSNI made all the difference for J.D., as it does for so many others.

“If it weren’t for PSNI, he wouldn’t be able to live in his little apartment, learn to cook his own food and work on learning to budget his money,” Gwaltney said. “He can’t read or measure, so learning to cook is a particular challenge. Budgeting is something that he may never be able to grasp very well, and learning these things will take years. Even so, PSNI is giving him every chance to be able to master them some day.”

The Women’s Circle of Sandpoint has challenged the community to step up and take care of this facility that cares for so many of their own, and the area has picked up the gauntlet and run with it.