February 1, 2019
Local chapter of PEO celebrates 50th anniversary
Poplar Bluff’s first PEO Chapter KB is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, but that’s a third the age of the international organization which is commemorating its 150th anniversary. P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) is one of the oldest women’s organizations in North America, which started as a bond of friendship among seven young women in 1869 in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. ...
Poplar Bluff’s first PEO Chapter KB is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, but that’s a third the age of the international organization which is commemorating its 150th anniversary.
P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) is one of the oldest women’s organizations in North America, which started as a bond of friendship among seven young women in 1869 in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. A hundred years after the international organization was established, Chapter KB became a part of the local community. Since its founding in 1969, local chapters DG and MF were organized. They join 230,000 current P.E.O. members from nearly 6,000 chapters across the United States and Canada in celebrating the milestone.
On a recent Sunday afternoon members of KB invited fellow P.E.O. members to celebrate their golden anniversary. Among the close to 50 attending were three KB charter members: Martha Albers, Judy Scott and Pat Vincent.
Chapter KB president Debbie Harper of Poplar Bluff said, the local members “stand on the shoulders of the generations of P.E.O. sisters who came before us. They were dedicated to the mission of women supporting women, just as we are today and this is the cause that will continue to be relevant for the next 150 years.”
The organization is composed of “women who help women with their education,” said KB member Heath Farmer. The international women’s organization has empowered more than 105,000 women with $321 million in educational financial assistance.
The sisterhood owns Cottey College, which is a women’s college in Nevada, Mo., and they provide a variety of scholarships, grants and educational loan fund for women.
Farmer said, “We are suppose to focus on students internationally and local.” The local group helps support Cottey College and offer two scholarships at Three Rivers College. They are the Grace Garner Memorial Scholarship for continuing education for a non-traditional female student and the Ruth Minetree Memorial Scholarship which pays the tuition for a Poplar Bluff High School female graduate.
Harper said, the local group has traveled to Cape Girardeau to interact with recipients of International Peace Scholarship. When a woman receives the peace scholarship and comes to the United States to study, she promises to go back to help women in her homeland, which helps P.E.O. reach around the world.
KB fundraisers include Breakfast with Santa, a two-year-old event which has sold out both years; celebrating chapter sisters’ birthdays; and a luau. Each chapter may develop it’s own fundraising projects.
Jennifer Hillis Fears said, a P.E.O. fundraiser she likes is the bed and breakfast project. When chapter members are traveling, they may arrange to have a fellow member open her home as a bed and breakfast. The money goes into the P.E.O. educational funds.
P.E.O. member Jan Cope agrees with Fears, saying, “I have benefitted through P.E.O. B&Bs, staying in over 100 as we travel, and by the chapters I visit in other places, especially Colorado.”
Fundraising projects like the bed and breakfast reinforce the members are “all sisters,” said Farmer. P.E.O. is a sisterhood whose goal is to raise money for women’s education.
Harper said, P.E.O. “takes care of one another like a family. We all pull together.”
When a member needs help, others are there to provide food, transportation or anything they need.
Joining P.E.O., Fears explained, gave her mentors, who share their faith, life experiences and who are wiser. Fears’ late grandmother Joyce Ward was a charter member of KB.
“We learn so much,” Fears said. After every business meeting, someone presents a program, which may be continuing education or about bees, shepherds, packing and backpacking.
“I love the organization,” said former KB chapter president Mary Shock. “P.E.O. means friendships, women young and old-with similar goals of providing educational opportunities, and growing as sisters.”
Farmer explained, the local groups may nominated women applicants for any of the International education projects.
They include:
• Cottey College — A nationally ranked, fully accredited, independent, liberal arts/sciences college owned/supported by P.E.O. since 1927 and offers baccalaureate and associate degrees in a variety of majors. • Educational Loan Fund, established in 1907, makes loans available to qualified women who desire higher education and are in need of financial assistance. The loan fund is not a scholarship fund.
• The International Peace Scholarship Fund, established in 1949, is a program which provides scholarships for selected women from other countries for graduate study in the United States and Canada. Members of P.E.O. believe that education is fundamental to world peace and understanding.
• The P.E.O. Program for Continuing Education (PCE) is intended to provide one-time need based grants to women who are citizens or legal permanent residents of the United States or Canada for use in completing a degree or certification necessary for improving or gaining skills leading to employment.
• Scholar Awards (PSA) program was established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral level degree at an accredited college or university.
• Star Scholarship is a non-renewable $2,500 scholarship for graduating high school senior women which must be used in the academic year following graduation or it will be forfeited.
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