Service -

Providing volunteer hours and in-kind donations to our community

The Zonta Club of Madison is committed to serving the community by volunteering our time, talents, and support to a variety of organizations and initiatives that help empower women and girls. This is done through individual volunteering, group project volunteering and in-kind donations.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month Little Free Library Project – Empowering Children

Annually since 2018, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April), the club has collected and distributed educational materials intended to assist parents in teaching their children about body safety/autonomy, consent and how to stay safe from sexual predators. In addition to generous contributions from Zontians our project has been supported by grants from other local community organizations.

Distributed Book List

Bev Duncan Little Libraries Project

This year’s event is in honor of our Zonta Club of Madison long-time member and past president, Beverly Duncan. Bev joined Zonta in 1980 and was active in a variety of roles, including club president in 1987-1988. Bev remained a member of the club until her passing in 2024. She was a big fan and enthusiastic donor of the Little Libraries Service project, and the club has named this annual event as a memorial to her commitment and service to improving the lives of women and girls.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October) Little Free Library Project

From 2017 through 2019 the club organized the collection and distribution of books related to Domestic Violence and Abuse for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Resource cards with local contact information/assistance were included in each book.

Girls on the Run of South Central Wisconsin

Each year Madison Zontians support the empowerment of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade girls by assisting Girls on the Run with setup, route monitoring, staffing snack and reward tables, coaching, and whatever is needed to make the event a very rewarding experience for all. The girls, with support of coaches, set goals, achieve goals, and build self-esteem. Girls learn that they can achieve anything!

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Bring the Basics, Period. Raising awareness about “period poverty”

Our project was kicked off at the Brava Women’s Weekend Event where we collected hundreds of donations of sanitary pads and tampons for distribution to area agencies that serve those in need. In honor of Zonta’s 100^th anniversary, Zonta Madison asked community members to become a Zonta 100 Champions by pledging to collect at least 100-period products through friends, book clubs, organizations, churches, neighborhoods, offices or workplaces. Club members gathered and distributed those supplies to The Road Home, Salvation Army Women’s Shelter, Madison College, Four Community MMSD Schools, Personal Essentials Pantries, WisCares, Freedom, Inc., Demeter Foundation, Healing House, and UNIDOS.

May Baskets for Low Income Senior Centers

Zonta volunteers assemble beautiful May baskets for women in low income Senior Centers that contain seasonal items.

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Domestic Abuse Intervention Services Dinner Team

Three of several Zonta dinner volunteers.

From 2013 to 2020, in an ongoing partnership with Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS), Zonta volunteers prepared monthly homemade dinners for over 50 residents of the DAIS Shelter. The team completed 26 hours of training on working with abuse survivors and volunteered over 1000 hours.