The Lake Highlands Women’s League may be one of our community’s most established pillars, but the organization is by no means static.
Photography by Yuvie Styles
Photography by Yuvie Styles
Founded in 1969, the group of 100 active members and 200 sustainers engages in various volunteer and philanthropic activities around Lake Highlands, including the popular Holiday in the Highlands Home Tour. While it maintains its original mission of supporting various civic and educational initiatives in the neighborhood, LHWL has evolved in recent years to reflect the changing lives of Lake Highlands women.
The membership form asks prospective members what they do for a living. In the past, that question centered around husbands’ occupations. It’s fitting, especially considering around 80% of members work these days, up from around 50% when outgoing President Heather Marburger joined close to a decade ago.
“One of the things we’ve done is really look at how we do our committees. They don’t always have to be day meetings. Zoom has helped,” Marburger says. “If you’re on a really, really packed committee, and instead of always meeting face-to-face, you can fit a few in there.”
In addition to providing more flexibility for committee meetings, LHWL has also created nighttime meeting opportunities for all members to meet their membership requirements. It’s helpful for members like Marburger, who works for AT&T’s corporate office.
She says the makeup of the league’s membership has also changed in recent years.
“I do believe there was a time where there was probably an age group, and their kids were a certain age, and now we’re all over the place, and it brings a lot of good perspective,” she says.
New perspectives have brought changes to various LHWL initiatives, including the home tour, which is the league’s biggest fundraiser. In the past, the Friday morning before the tour was reserved for a kickoff luncheon.
In place of the luncheon, which was time-consuming and required many members to volunteer, the league launched its Sip and Shop three years ago. The event invites neighbors to the KayCee Club for an afternoon of browsing local vendor stands accompanied by sparkling wine. For Home Tour ticket holders, the first glass is free.
Changes have also been made to the league’s scholarship program, a foundational aspect of its mission. LHWL traditionally disbursed scholarships to 60 graduating Lake Highlands High School seniors, but this year, the organization consolidated the awards to create higher-impact scholarships for 40 seniors.
Recently, the league amended its bylaws to allow for 115 active members, up from the 100 originally mandated. Incoming President Dee Ann Baggett, whose sister and mother-in-law are both also LHWL members, says that membership will rise incrementally, with a total of 105 active members expected for the fall.
“I want to make sure that these 19 or 20 new ladies that are coming on board, that they feel welcome, that they are able to connect and seek guidance from mentorships or their sponsor,” Baggett says. “So I want to make sure we’re successful with the new members, because I think they’ll stay on longer if they can get in that first year and feel like they’re connected.”
Social activities available to LHWL members include book clubs, movie groups and dinner groups, among other activity-specific subgroups. The league also organizes cultural excursions to Dallas landmarks like the Dallas Museum of Art and the George W. Bush Presidential Museum, in addition to a yearly destination trip (including Nashville, Puerto Rico and Santa Barbara in previous years).
While plenty of things have changed for the league in recent years, plenty more has remained the same. The Home Tour welcomes hundreds of visitors each year, thousands of dollars of scholarships are awarded to graduating seniors and Women’s League volunteers still drop off $10,000+ checks at local elementary schools.
“It’s great that we have evolved, but we’ve held on to those core values that we have,” Baggett says. “We don’t want to make it something it’s not either … We still have the same goals every year.”
