{"id":13616,"date":"2016-03-09T18:20:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T23:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13616"},"modified":"2016-03-09T18:20:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T23:20:25","slug":"auroras-womens-institute-moves-well-beyond-jams-and-cakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-womens-institute-moves-well-beyond-jams-and-cakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora’s Women’s Institute moves well beyond jams and cakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you think a Women\u2019s Institute, once a mainstay of every Canadian community, sits around and makes jellies and flower arrangements all day, think again. Aurora\u2019s Women\u2019s Institute is back and they\u2019re looking to become better than ever.<\/p>\n

Reconstituted by residents Cheryl Davies and Jayne McBain last August, they were encouraged by the Federated Women\u2019s Institutes of Ontario (FWIO) to bring the \u201cW.I.\u201d and challenge their long-held image of jelly makers and knitters.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the Women\u2019s Institute in Ontario was dying,\u201d says Ms. Davies. \u201cThere has been a resurgence in the W.I. in the UK, so they looked to see what they were doing to attract new and younger members. It was just engaging with young women again and going back into the schools to try and engage with young women to get the politicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its heyday, Canadian W.I.s were \u201cmovers and shakers\u201d in the public sphere and they want to get there again.<\/p>\n

A native of Liverpool, Ms. Davies came to Canada and settled in Aurora with her son just over eight years ago. While her son was quick to plant his roots, Ms. Davies says she was looking for a sense of belonging. With that initially outside of her grasp, she hopes the Aurora W.I. can become a \u201cfirst port of call\u201d for any new woman coming into the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t know anyone and you\u2019re new to Town, you get to meet your neighbours and folks in the coffee shop, but it can be isolating moving into a new town or a new part of the world,\u201d she says. \u201cI want this to be that first foundation point where they can make friends and make connections and start planting roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the W.I. is making inroads into the community. To mark their 119th anniversary, the FWIO created a children\u2019s book and tasked local branches to make quilts and teddy bears to distribute, along with the books, to local groups in need. Late last month, they made their impressive donation to Yellow Brick House, keen to support an organization which in turn supports young families.<\/p>\n

The first focus of the Aurora W.I. is \u201csocial and community development.\u201d Although Ms. Davies likens their group to a \u201ctiny acorn\u201d, she says she hopes they can grow into a mighty oak as advocates for supporting causes related to autism, including support for adult living options and day programs, as well as the rights of grandparents. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re open to all members of all walks of life and backgrounds,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe all women have something to offer, whether it is a skill or even their very being. The larger we become, the more impactful we will be in this community across all ages. I see this as being something for women in each stage of life, whether it is through the college years, motherhood, empty nesters, retirement, bereavement or widowhood. Every woman is looking for something different from the W.I. and I feel at this moment in time, because we\u2019re that little acorn, we can\u2019t meet everyone\u2019s needs but in time we will be able to. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiven its connotation and history, people seem to think of the W.I. as women who make jam and sell cakes; that part is there, sure, and something we will always carry on, but there is much more of a push towards political change. The W.I. wants a rebirth, still recognizing what they achieved in the past and moving forward to inspire and aspire young women to be active members of the community. We\u2019re still a tiny acorn, but the world is our oyster!\u201d<\/p>\n

For more on the Aurora Women\u2019s Institute, look them up on Facebook, visit www.fwio.on.ca, contact them by email at auroraWI2015@gmail.com or call 905-395-4229.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you think a Women\u2019s Institute, once a mainstay of every Canadian community, sits around and makes jellies and flower arrangements all day, think again. Aurora\u2019s Women\u2019s Institute is back and they\u2019re looking to become better than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/2016-03-10-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3xC","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 13:32:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}