Why I Joined the Junior League of Columbia

Each month, we will feature a post by Christy Snow, a member of this year's Provisional class. This will allow our community to get a glimpse into the Provisional experience. For those of you not familiar with the League, a Provisional is a member who is in her first year; it is a time for her to learn about JLC's mission, programs and to get involved.

Submitted by Christy Snow, Provisional Member

My name is Christy Snow, and I’ve lived in Columbia full-time for about six years. I moved here from Greenville to go to school at the University of South Carolina, but I’ve always loved Columbia since I was a little girl. For me it’s got everything I need – reasonably priced shopping, options for an active lifestyle, an awesome job, great restaurants that I can go to in yoga pants and, of course, Gamecock football.

I will say that my only disappointment in Columbia happened when I graduated college in 2010. Nearly all of my friends moved away upon graduating, and I had to start from scratch again. For the first couple of years, I fortunately had the distractions of building a career, tackling that “freshman 15” that held on to my hips for dear life and learning adult things such as how to pay a water bill and change an air filter. However, once I was able to get my feet on the ground, I realized my social life and charitable giving of my time had a taken a serious backburner in my life.

Enter Junior League of Columbia. I’ve always been familiar with the League from co-workers, friends and the twenty JLC car stickers I see driving around on any given day in Columbia, so I figured it was worth looking into. The dues were affordable and I had no issues finding sponsors (A big thanks to Carol Caulk and Powers Strickland!). From the get go, I had a good feeling about joining and was ready to dive in.

 First Provisional Social

August 1^st was the date of our first provisional gathering at the Palmetto Club. For this one, we got to bring our fabulous sponsors along. I met some really great women at the social and since I was not blessed with the ability to remember names very well, I am super thankful for those beautiful JLC nametags! This event was a nice  way to meet not only other provisional members but to also mingle and chat with active members and sustainers. Overall, it was the perfect welcome to the League!

Orientation

I am not crazy about the word “orientation.” It typically means sitting for hours on end, listening to a bunch of talking heads loading you down with answers to questions that you don’t even have yet. JLC’s Provisional Committee surprised me. At most, it was only two hours of your typical orientation activities. Even in those two hours, I was engaged in the presentation the entire time (with the help of complimentary trail mix and Diet Coke that the League provided). There were multiple speakers that presented in order to break up the monotony. We heard perspectives from each of our Provisional Committee members, the JLC board and my favorite was hearing from a past JLC President, Kristy Ellenberg. She touched on the highlights of Junior League’s history and by the end of her speech, I was moved and motivated to get involved with the League and make some history of my own. By the end of orientation, I had successfully added all meeting dates for the next year into my phone and was ready for Happy Hour!

Happy Hour was a great way to end our first mandatory event with plenty of great food, drinks and laughs. I think everyone was excited for the year to come and I met plenty of other awesome women!

This next year is going to be a whirlwind, but I’m looking forward to the multiple opportunities ahead of giving back to the community and making new friends through the Junior League of Columbia!