Doubled in Growth, Double the Giving

Juniors celebrate at a successful Mardi Gras event in March. (Photo courtesy of Greg Kozlick of 726 Visuals)

Downers Grove Magazine | In The News | By Valerie Hardy

Despite the pandemic, the Downers Grove Junior Woman’s Club’s membership and philanthropic contributions to the community have soared over the past two years.

On a rainy Saturday evening in March, upwards of 100 active and prospective members of the Downers Grove Junior Woman’s Club (DGJWC) - along with spouses and friends - converged upon the Chateau Orleans banquet hall, a sea of green, gold and purple, sequins abounding. Some wore masks (not the surgical kind we have grown so accustomed to, but Mardi Gras masks aligned with the event’s theme).

For many of the Mardi Gras Masquerade’s approximately 250 attendees, this was their first large-scale indoor event since March 2020, when the DGJWC hosted its Havana Nights-themed fundraiser a week before the coronavirus shut the world down. Some participants may have felt a bit uneasy and out-of-habit after a two-year hiatus, but overall, the room was buzzing with excitement.