United Methodist Women

News and Events

UMW Sponsors Giant Garage Sale!

The UMW Board voted to sponsor an all church garage sale for our major fundraiser this year. The majority of the proceeds will go to mission outreach benefitting children, youth and women.

Our sale was held May 6th and 7th with pre-sale set-up and intake five days preceeding the actual sale. Church members had the opportunity to come the evening of May 5th to enjoy an “All You Can Eat Spaghetti Dinner” and have “first dibs” on garage sale items.

The overall sale was very successful with proceeds netting $8300. A special feature of the sale allowed people to fill an entire grocery shopping bag with everything they could get into the bag for $4 the last hour of the sale. Sales were brisk and everyone benefitted.

Mary Rose Howard and Cindy Dillon were terrific co-chairs for our sale and we thank them so much. We also thank the Women At The Well (Bible Study) and the Inspiring Moms for helping us to be able to take on such a large project. Since Lake Travis UMC is a mission area church, we felt especially grateful that we could help the Hispanic community by sponsoring this garage sale which had great bargains on children’s toys and clothes household goods and much more.

Agency Tours and Presentation of LTUMW Support Checks

Seven UMW women traveled to Montopolis to visit Florence's Comfort House and the Montopolis Friendship Community Center on June 3rd. We were able to view the facilities and personally give our UMW Board approved funding checks to Florence and to Billie Talley, volunteer at Montopolis Friendship Community Center.

At MFCC we had a tour of the main hall where the thrift shop and activity center is located and then to the Mother's Day Out program classroom.

On Sunday, June 4, at LTUMC , Patty Miles, UMW President, presented a check to Chris Ford, founder of My Healing Place (see photo at left) and member of LTUMC.

Marcia Dilly, UMW Treasurer, and Patty also presented a check to Dorothy Boddedker on behalf of Lake Travis Crisis Ministry. (see photo left) Dorothy is a Board member of LTCM, a former LTUMW President, LTUMC member and presently a UMW district officer. Other agencies that have received funding from our UMW unit include Cookson Hills in Oklahoma, and True Vineyard Ministries. All proceeds are a result of the successful all church Garage Sale that UMW sponsored in May. We hope to make more funds available to additional agencies later in the year.


President Patty Miles presenting check to Florence of Florence's Comfort House.		UMW members presented a check to Billie Talley at Montopolis Friendship Community Center.

UMW member Merle Hurlbert visits with children at the Montopolis Friendship Community Center.		Visiting with teachers and volunteers at Montopolis Friendship Community Center.

A Day Apart

Over 120 women from the Austin area attended the 'A Day Apart' retreat March 26 hosted by Lake Travis United Methodist Women. The event was sponsored by the Austin District United Methodist Women. Twenty-five Lake Travis United Methodist Women were wonderful hostesses in our brand new Ministry Activities Center and served a delicious luncheon.

The guest speaker was Rev. Meri Whitaker, Lake Travis UMC missionary and director of Cookson Hills Center in Oklahoma. Rev. Whitaker is the author of "My Sister, the Father", a book on the UMW 2011 Reading Program list. She inspired us and brought us to tears with her moving stories of life at the Cookson Hills Center. Attendees responded with a very generous offering for the ministries of the Cookson Hills Center.

Following the speaker, "The Other Twelve Disciples” drama was presented by members of the Austin District Mission Team and volunteers. They portrayed twelve women in Jesus' ministry; choir music, dance and table favors enhanced their stories.

Evaluations for this first-time event in the Austin District were very positive, and attendees are looking forward to the next UMW spiritual growth event. Pictures of the event are on the Austin District UMW website: http://www.gbgm-umc.org/austinumw/.

All Church Women’s Retreat February 25-26

UMW sponsored an all church women’s retreat at beautiful Canyon of the Eagles February 25-26. We had 34 women attend and Reverend Colleen Haley was our leader. “God: Our True North” was Colleen’s inspiration for the three sessions. We had time for worship, study, reflection, prayer and song, in addition to communion at the conclusion of the day on Saturday.

Special thanks go to Colleen as well as retreat organizers, Teddy Broeker, Sylvia Simpson and Patty Miles. We look forward to our next retreat!

United Methodist Women 2010 Awards

Each year Lake Travis United Methodist Women selects a woman or women to be honored with their very highest award-the Mission Recognition Pin. Since UMW is outward focused, these recipients are women in our unit who have over some time been active in mission outreach, and the award is acknowledgment of their service. This year three women have received the Mission Recognition Pin.

Sharon Rush has served our unit in various offices, been one of the orginal framers of the Hallelujah benefits, has been our continuing unit secretary in addition to serving our church community with flu shots for several years. Sharon called at the beginning of planning for this year's benefit and offered to head up the dinner preparations so we could generate more profits. Sharon has chaired several other dinners recently that also were outreach or benefit efforts. This has dramatically increased our total net monies this year by 20% since we didn't need to pay a caterer or servers.

Debby Duplantis, our unit's membership chair, has served throughout the church as member at large of Administrative Council, as the council secretary for several years, served as Treasurer of UMW, and has always been on the Hallelujah benefit teams. Debby, with her husband, Bob, have also served as organizers of Great People. This year Debby, along with Stephanie Buscemi, organized and led the all church women's retreat. Debby also joined Sharon in the kitchen cooking and serving to increase this year's benefit results.

Patti Ruth became President a year ago this past January, and she has made multiple significant contributions to the Lake Travis UMW. Patti has added two Circles to the one we already had boosting membership dramatically. Patti has also revived a women’s retreat for the Church that was held at Canyon of the Eagles the past two years. Patti is the one who had the idea for “A Simple Supper” at Lenten time and the morning Wednesday Circle has been in charge of that. UMW also picked up the Family Advent Activity luncheon and program at the urging of Patti. As if this isn’t all enough, Patti is the one who has taken Hearts and Hallelujahs to new heights by steering and chairing this event into an evening fundraiser with a dinner-dance and silent auction. All proceeds go to local missions or charity organizations. This year alone $8500 was raised and is being distributed throughout the community.