The Zonta Club of Jefferson City celebrated the sweet successes of several women in the community during its annual Yellow Rose Luncheon on Tuesday - chief of whom was Peggy Kirkpatrick, who became the organization's 13th Mrs. William H. Weldon Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
As executive director of the Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri, Kirkpatrick "became the answer to her own prayer and those of countless Mid-Missourians," said presenter Tony Weldon, whose mother, Mrs. William H. Weldon, is the award's namesake.
Kirkpatrick joined the food bank when it was struggling in 1992, leaving a computer-programming career to answer what she heard as God's call to serve the homeless and hungry. By the time she retired after 22 years, the food bank was distributing a record 36.5 million pounds of food to 131 hunger-relief agencies and 138 Buddy Pack schools in its 32-county service area, with only a 1.9 percent administrative cost.
"I would encourage the people of Jefferson City and Mid-Missouri to give everyone a second chance - or third or fourth - because that's how they're going to get out of poverty; that's how they're going to improve their lives and, in turn, help someone," Kirkpatrick said in a video compiled to recognize her for the award.
Her words of encouragement met with similar sentiments - working to help others and forming meaningful relationships - throughout the event, hosted for the 16th year by the Zonta Club, a service organization of professional women that works to empower women locally and worldwide.
Also honored as Women of Achievement were Angela Hirsch and Yvonne Matthews.
"Truly, the answer to what makes us achieve is very simple: it's the people who are around us, the relationships that we form," Hirsch said while accepting her award. "I have been incredibly blessed with some amazing women and some amazing people who have led me, taught me, guided me throughout my entire life and my entire career."
Hirsch is the community services director for Central Missouri Community Action, where she works to develop solutions to poverty. In her career, she has developed a victim services program for the Missouri Attorney General's Office and was the office's first victim advocate, and served as executive director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
"These people who are struggling, fighting for justice, surviving abuse, and pulling themselves and their families out of poverty - these people are my heroes, and the world is made a better place because of their victories," Hirsch said. "I want the idea of poverty and injustice to my grandchildren to be as foreign as the idea of segregation is to me."
Matthews, acting dean for the Lincoln University College of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, assists at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Columbia by serving as a worship leader and Steward and Finance Committee member. In accepting her award, she recited Mona Lake Jones' poem "A Room Full of Sisters," comparing the crowd gathered to celebrate the successes of local women to the women described in the poem, whose "beauty was in the values on which they were reared."
"I strongly believe in the mission of Zonta. ... It so parallels the work that I have tried to do at Lincoln University," Matthews said. "Lincoln addresses a special need for special students, and the things that I believe are important are the things that we get to do there in helping students who may not have a chance to go to college, helping students who have a chance to excel."
Other Women of Achievement nominees included Sister Peggy Bonnot, Brandy Bryant, Suzette Heiman, Sallie Moses Jacobs, Jeanie McGowan, Dona McKinney, Elizabeth Morrow, Barb Prasad, Debbie Roslan, Jimmy Kay Sanders, Megan Sappington, Teresa Snow, Margaret Thoenen and Tami Gibbs Turner. The award recipients were selected by the Zonta Club of Mankato, Minnesota.
Zonta also awarded three local women with Second Chance Scholarships, which help women over age 24 with a high school diploma or GED pursue post-secondary education to advance their status in the workplace. The scholarship recipients include Julie Barker, a single mother of five majoring in criminal justice at Columbia College; Rachel Smith, working toward a degree in American studies so she can teach high school social studies; and Jessica Vanderfeltz, a single mother of two and licensed professional nurse pursuing a bachelor's degree in human services.
Proceeds from the Yellow Rose Luncheon help fund Zonta's scholarship programs.
Zonta also gave the Celebration Award to guest speaker Robbie Montgomery, a former backup singer for Ike and Tina Turner who redirected her life when she opened St. Louis restaurant Sweetie Pie's, where she offers employment opportunities to ex-offenders.
"I get the joy out of giving a second chance to somebody that everybody had counted out," Montgomery said. "If you've got something that you believe in, go for it because it is your dream and you can make it happen."