Since 1903, the Gainesville Woman’s Club has played a role in shaping the local community. From helping establish Gainesville’s first public library to supporting local charities and community initiatives today, the organization has spent more than a century empowering women and fostering civic engagement.
Leatha Holder, the club’s current president, has spent the past two years leading the organization while helping expand its community partnerships and outreach efforts across Gainesville. As she prepares to step into a new role as district director this May, Holder continues to focus on the club’s mission of service, leadership and support for women in the community.
In recognition of Women’s History Month, WUFT’s Sabrina Cruz spoke with Holder about her path to the role, the importance of women-led organizations, and the initiatives the Gainesville Woman’s Club supports locally, including scholarships, service programs, advocacy efforts and community-building projects.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Cruz: Tell me a little bit about your journey into becoming president within the club.
Holder: Oh, it's my pleasure. I was in Gainesville Junior Woman's Club many years ago but had to set it aside because of career and family. So when I retired from my active career, I made the decision that I had not been a good community volunteer prior and that I wanted to come back in and really do it correctly by my standard. So, I rejoined the Gainesville Woman's Club and first served as co-chair of the health and wellness committee for a couple of years having retired as operating room nurse, surgery nurse and so that was a good fit and I enjoyed that.
Then I was elected by the club third vice president where I was in charge of membership and you know tracking members, greeting new members, that sort of thing, processing membership applications and we were in a very large growth time right then because our membership had dropped off during COVID. So we were in a recovery phase at that point. I did that and then the nominated committee called and said would you run for president and I said, "Oh, I think you have the wrong number." And they assured me not. So, I was elected president and I'm wrapping up, it's usually a two-year commitment and in May, I finished my second year of my presidential commitment. Then they again surprised me by asking me if I would vie for our district director. So starting in May, I become district director of district 5.
Cruz: How are you feeling about now being named district director in May?
Holder: I'm a committed lifelong learner and so anything I can do that I'm learning and I'm surrounded by talented, bright, energetic and engaged people and I'm serving others, then that just is my cup of tea. So, am I looking forward to it? Yes. With an appropriate amount of anxiety that I want to be sure I do a good job.
Cruz: So what does leadership mean to you?
Holder: I'm a servant leader. I believed that when I was director of surgery, my career and am now for the club. I firmly believe that is a leader's role, which is to lead by example. To listen to those we lead for what obstacles are in their path preventing them from being successful. The leader's responsibility is, once those obstacles are identified, to work together with the team to remove those obstacles or mitigate them so that the team can be successful together.
So that's leadership to me is integrity, commitment to excellence and not just a saying on the wall of your office. It needs to really be a core value.
Cruz: What has been the most rewarding part of serving as president?
Holder: The broadening of our relationship with the community and being actively engaged with the charities that we serve. One thing that we do in our club is that all of our charities must stay in our community. We don't send our charity money off to a national organization. We give directly to charities.
As an example, we just completed one of our annual festival trees in November and it's quite a fun affair but we earned over $20,000 and we gave $9,000 to Camp Crystal scholarships for underserved and underprivileged children, affording them the opportunity to go to summer camp. The other part, we gave to seniors, $9,000 to Altrusa House which is a day center for adults. We also just finished Bodacious Handbag Bingo, which is an evening of great fun and loud noise, of playing bingo and our benefit for that is the Guardian Angels medical service dogs. The dogs are for injured veterans and others who otherwise could not afford to have a trained service dog. Then we have our fashion show which is coming up in April. The funds for that go to the Children's Advocacy Center. So everything is in Gainesville, for local, and stays to help our own community.
Cruz: What would you say you're especially proud of?
Holder: I'm especially proud of our diversity. We have been a club since 1903 and our original founding club brought the first public library to Gainesville through a Carnegie Foundation foundation grant. Gainesville did not have a public library until the women of the Gainesville Woman's Club, which at that time was actually called the 20th century club.
In fact, there was a story that went around many years ago that no politician made a decision without checking with the Gainesville Woman’s club to see if it was a good idea or not. We've been very strong advocates for women's issues and that is a battle that's never won. You simply must stay together and you must be a voice for support to other women.
Cruz: How would you say the organization has evolved?
Holder: Oh, the organization has evolved amazingly. We stay current on current affairs.
We do have standing committees, but those committees and those community service projects grow as the community defines them. We identify the needs in the community and then we collectively address those. Another way that we've evolved is in order to have optimum health, you need a community of people that you are a part of, that you feel important to and that are important to you. When you're a member of the Gainesville Woman's Club, that's your community. We have over 200 members and any one of us can call on any one of the others and say "can you help me with this," so we support each other as well as the community.
We evolved through that constantly as needs changed. During COVID, the needs were very different. So, we had to evolve to doing more communication through handwritten notes, through phone calls, through checking on each other. I had a friend say to me what does the woman's club do, I think it’s just ladies that are sitting around having tea parties. And I was like “Oh, contrary my dear, not at all.”
Cruz: Why do you think women-led organizations are still important today?
Holder: They're no less important than they've ever been. You hear people say women were given the right to vote. No, we weren't. We had to fight for it. My grandmother could not vote. She had to be one of the ones to stand up and say, "We, my generation of women, wanted the Equal Rights Amendment," which finally the last state approved, but it still had not been signed into law. We could lose that so quickly. We cannot take our eye off the ball. When I got married in 1969, not that long ago, I had to have my husband's permission for birth control pills.
I could not have a credit card in my name, it had to be an add-on to his name. I could not get a car loan or a home mortgage without being co-signed by my father or my husband. It has been the protest and the ongoing work of women who have made it to where you don't have to face those issues. But that could all be taken away if you do not sit vigil and attend it.
Cruz: What challenges do you think that women leaders are facing today?
Holder: The challenges women are facing today are the ones that we've always challenged, which is we are paid less for equal work, we are assessed differently in our abilities to work, not based on our abilities, but based on preconceived notions. More women are single parents than men are and the institution solutions to help with single parenting are not there like they were before. We don't live across the street from our grandmothers and down the street from our mothers, we don't have three to four sisters that are willing to help you, you don't have a community.
Women falsely believed that we could do it all, have it all, be it all and you can't. When you realize you can't, then you're dealing with that sense of I've failed.
We don't reach out to each other and say, I'm dancing as fast as I can and I'm still falling behind because we're taught if we say help then we're being weak women and to be expected to do what we do, women today are phenomenal.
Cruz: What would you say to young women who are interested in leadership or community involvement but don't know where to start?
Holder: What I would recommend is an organization like the Gainesville Woman's Club because we have so many opportunities within the club to participate. You don’t have to be in the club for a year before you can be a committee chair, before being on the committee. The good thing about it is unlike a job or like a school schedule, you have requirements of when you must be there. With the woman's club, you can do as much or as little as you have time to, so that it's rewarding and fulfilling, but not overwhelming.
Cruz: How would you empower these young women today?
Holder: Assuring them they're not alone, that every mama is a mama to every young woman and we're safe places to be. You can come and tell us I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I need help, and we aren't going to judge you. So to empower young women to thrive and to seek excellence for themselves, but not perfection because perfection is doom.
Cruz: What advice would you give yourself back then [at 20]?
Holder: To forgive myself for the mistakes that I'm going to make and to not look back and judge myself on what I learned 20 years from now because I don't have the same, I didn't have the same tools in my toolbox when I was 19 and 20 as I did 20 years older or 30 years older.
So don't be your own harshest critic.
Cruz: When you think about the future for women in Gainesville, what gives you hope?
Holder: Our education system is wide open to women. We don't set unrealistic expectations on women. We have organizations that are there when you need them, whether it is Peaceful Paths because you find yourself in an untenable situation and you need safety or refuge, we've got that. If you're a young mom and need your children engaged in positive activities, we have that. We have excellent academic opportunities. We have excellent recreational opportunities.