Other Related Associations

Quilting Association

Some women of the Greenbelt Women's Club also became members of the quilting association which did not emerge until 1970. Seven women, including the founder, Lynn Harris, founded the National Quilting Association. It emerged because of a refound popularity in quilting. The goal of the association is to teach people the art of quality quilt making. For many years the meetings were located in the Springhill lake apartment complex in Greenbelt. Today that specific site is known as the Fountain Lodge.

With its know fifteen thousand plus members, The National Quilting Association holds a quilting show annually where its members can show all the hard work they have completed over the course of the past year. The first of these shows was held at the Greenbelt Library in September 1970 and continued until about 1976. Today the National Quilting Association has various chapters because they are so large. The Designing Women chapter of Springhill Lake still holds a yearly show at the Library. Many of the women in this association have been nationally recognized for their extraordinary talents.

Homemakers Club

The homemakers club was a more exclusive club. It originated in 1958 with the help of Martha Aisquith, Doris Alexander, and Norma Limberis. Most of the initial members were from the "North End" of town. Its basic goal was in unison with that of the Women's Club of Greenbelt. There goal is to share in programs for the improvement of home and community. Their meetings were much more casual and were held in members homes. Most meeting were held monthly and the topics of discussion included: health, money, travel, and aging just to name a few.

The Greenbelt Sitters Club

The Greenbelt Sitters Club began as the Sitters pool. It originated to solve some of the baby-sitting needs of parents. In 1946 a cooperative baby-sitting service started and was actually one of the first of its kind in Maryland. The Greenbelt Sitters Club has been in existence since 1946, but recently it has only been operating in "Old Greenbelt". The way the club workes is that no money is ever exchanged. Mothers will baby-sit the children of other mothers and this will earn them points that can be used in the future for someone to watch their child. This meant that if you wanted someone responsible to watch your child you would also have to take responsibility one in a while to watch someone else's child.

Garden Club

Another popular club that was started around the same time the Women's Club came into existence is the Garden Club. The Garden Club started in 1938 (a little bit prior to the women's club). It was started to stimulate a love of gardening and to protect the environment. Can you believe even in the 1930s there were environmental groups? There are monthly meetings to discuss insecticides, gardens, flowers adorning the inside and the outside of the home, lawn care, and many others. Occasionally the club would go on field trips and they would also participate in community yard and flower contests. These friendly competitions would usually spark the interest of many of the community members and they would often improve the condition of their yards. By the late 1980s the popularity of the club died down and their main responsibility was to assign garden plots.