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This fall, University of Washington Faculty Auxiliary (UWFA) members demonstrated the power of community and creativity through their hand-knit hat sales events. Designed to support UW undergraduate scholarships (donate now!), the initiative brought together dedicated volunteers, skillful knitters, and enthusiastic shoppers at five unique events.

The result? Over $6,000 raised—and countless heads and hearts warmed! Let’s take a closer look at the events that made this fundraising effort such a success.

A Dash of Success: Dawg Dash

UWFA kicked off their campaign in October at the UW Alumni Association’s Dawg Dash. Against the backdrop of bustling activity at Red Square, where other booths offered trinkets, the UWFA stood out as the only vendor selling items. Volunteers raised almost $1,000 while sharing their mission with the community.

Scandinavian Spirit: Swedish Club Holiday Bazaar

Early November saw the group at the Swedish Club Holiday Bazaar, a celebration of Scandinavian culture and camaraderie. Despite a quieter turnout than previous years, the UWFA adapted creatively. The crocheted hot pads and Ferry (WSF) washcloths paired with the hats were a hit! On Saturday, sales were slow, but Sunday brought a surge of activity during the pancake breakfast, leading to a weekend total of almost $2,000.
 

Intimate Connections: Finnish Club Holiday Bazaar

The Finnish Club’s event at the cozy Leif Erikson Lodge the next week reinforced the power of storytelling. One memorable moment came when a UW alumnus made a $20 donation for a Ferry washcloth, moved by the scholarship cause. The day’s sales again reached almost $1000, showcasing the enduring appeal of the hats and the community’s generosity.

A Campus Affair: UW Fall Maker’s Fair

The campaign continued later in November at the HUB during the Fall Maker’s Fair. Students flocked to the UWFA table, some returning to buy more hats after loving their previous purchases. Quick thinking by the team—like marking down slow-selling hats to $10—proved effective, bringing in another $1,000.

Building on the momentum of the fall events, the team continued their efforts into the winter season.

UW Winter Maker’s Fair

At the Winter Maker’s Fair, with UWFA members dropping by to offer a helping hand, the conversation quietly turned to what was selling to UW students versus what sold at the Swedish and Finnish club holiday bazaars. We asked students of all genders about their preferred hat styles and colors. Stay tuned for more insights in an upcoming UWFA newsletter!

Students were seeking us out to find hats similar to those they’ve purchased in the past – wanting another one! While the day started slowly for us it ended up being a profitable day for the Scholarship fund, making almost $1,000.

Thank You to Our Village

The UWFA hat sales success is a testament to teamwork and creativity. From knitters to event coordinators to those who dropped by to offer encouragement, every contributor played a vital role. Their combined efforts not only raised over $6,000 but also strengthened the UWFA’s reputation for warmth—both literally and figuratively.

I want to thank all those who knit hats for these events. I’m looking forward to our next event which we’ll plan for the UW’s Dawg Dash in October.

Whether you’re a knitter, a hat enthusiast, or simply someone who values community-driven efforts, this campaign shows that small stitches can create a lasting impact. Here’s to many more hats, smiles, and scholarships in the future. You are encouraged to pick up your needles, with donated yarn available to anyone willing to contribute!

Want to be part of this heartwarming effort? Grab your needles—donated yarn is available! To contribute, contact Vera Wellner at joinuwfa@gmail.com.

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Marjorie Merriweather Post and her treasured Museum in our nation’s capital, Hillwood Estate

Presenter: Dagmar Shannon
When: Wednesday February 12, 2025 from 1-3pm
Where: Zoom (Join UWFA to attend)

Dagmar Shannon will talk about a fascinating woman and a treasured Museum in our nation’s capital, Hillwood Estate. She will be talking about Marjorie Merriweather Post of the Post cereal family. Marjorie Merriweather Post bought Hillwood in 1955 and soon decided her home would be a museum that would inspire and educate the public. Her Northwest Washington D.C estate endowed the country with the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia, a distinguished eighteenth-century French decorative art collection, and twenty-five acres of serene, landscaped gardens and natural woodlands for all to enjoy.

Our speaker, UWFA member Dagmar Shannon is no stranger to us. She belongs to over half of the UWFA Interest Groups, and has served as Editor of the Newsletter, Chair of the Holiday Tea, Program Chair, President and Co-President of our organization.

She was born in Duisberg, Germany. It was her own early interest in traveling that brought her to the United States in the first place. As a 17 year old high school student Dagmar participated in a school exchange program and came to Seattle to attend Lincoln High School. She lived with the Shannon family, and met their son, Bill, who was a UW student. They were married in 1967. She and Bill are world travelers and are instilling their love of travel to their 5 grandchildren. When each grandchild turns 10, he or she gets to go on a European trip with Bill and Dagmar. What lucky grandchildren. Dagmar documents her travels with detailed stories of history and culture and is an accomplished photographer.

Join UWFA to attend

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Scholarship Celebration Dinner and Lecture at Piatti’s in University Village Wednesday, November 8, 2023, Dinner at 5:30pm, followed by a Lecture by Dagmar Shannon “Waterways of the Tsars, a Travelogue”

We hope you will join us for our Annual Scholarship Celebration and Lecture.  We will introduce and award scholarships of $7000 each to 3 deserving UW undergraduates and hear their inspirational stories.

Our speaker, Dagmar Shannon, a longtime UWFA member, is a gifted photographer and storyteller.  She and her husband have traveled to all 7 continents and almost 100 countries. This trip to Russia stands out as a favorite.  You will enjoy the trip from St. Petersburg to Moscow as Dagmar takes us up river and through many lakes, canals, and locks while we enjoy the history, palaces, riches and palaces of Russia.

Wow, Fall is definitely here and is it blustery outside! The wind whistles around my head and I wish I had a hat on, don’t you feel the same way? Of course, not about me having a hat, but about yourself.
Well now, here is a way you can do something about that and help UW students as well!

Make an appointment to come and see the wonderful hats your fellow members have knitted and get yourself covered. Not only have we got the best variety of hats, but they are all hand-made, unique and, need I say more, fabulous!
Here you will find not only that special hat for yourself, your spouse and possibly the grandkids, but also a great gift for that hard to buy for aunt or uncle, cousin or friend who just simply already has everything. I bet they don’t have one of our fabulous creations! And they are so reasonable too! Most hats are between $20 and $30 depending on labor and material. And remember, these lightweight, unbreakable gifts are easy to mail to distant friends and family. But most of all remember that they are made with love. Love for our UW community and the students who need financial help through scholarships now more than ever with all the COVID-19 restrictions.

This year we have no grand sales venues as COVID restricts us all, but we thought we would make the fruits of our summer labor available to you, our dear UWFA members and to your friends.

How? Easy as pie:
We will have three shopping opportunities for you to come to see the hats, try them on and buy. Cash or checks only, please. The hats are for sale by appointment and thus will assure the safety of one customer at a time. The hats will be displayed on our porches or in the garage to offer a safe environment for you with plenty of air circulation and of course a chance to get out of the rain. What, rain in Seattle?

When: By appointment only
Friday, November 20th, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm- Wednesday, December 2nd, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm Saturday, December 12th, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm

Where: Addresses are all in the Directory
Nov 20th call; at Kay  house

Dec 2nd  call; at Dagmar house
Dec 12th call; at Barbara house

We know that once you come and see the hats that you will fall in love with them and the creativity on display. So, come prepared to spread the love to our UW students and bring lots of money!
No, seriously, we would love to warm your heart and your head with our
wonderful hats.

Please make the appointments soon, we would love to welcome you at each location

Yours,
Kay, Barbara, and Dagmar and all the generous knitters, whose hats will be on display

It was a good day to be at the beach, this morning! No rain, few people and just enough trash to keep us 8 Team members busy for an hour and a half!

We received words of gratitude from several beach-goers and two crew from Seattle Parks grounds maintenance, including an enthusiastic Sean Hermes, director of the grounds crew.  He is hooking us up with the Parks Volunteer Coordinator so we can match our volunteer efforts to the actual parks crews’ needs for help.  They gave us a gajillion hefty garbage bags, so you won’t have to BYOB  (Bring Your Own Bags) for the next decade… or at least for the next several outings, anyway.

Many interesting things were found, today:  a bouquet of yellow roses, barely de-petaled from the tides; a cremation-urn tag from the cremated remains of a beloved pet; a boogie board minus its boogie; a pair of adult undies… (uh, and we’ll just let that go without further comment); a couple of nice cloth shopping bags (we threw them away, just in case...);  a broken beer bottle tangled up with a fishing line gone bad (an enormous fish must have gotten away, angering the fisherman!); some water toys; and what appeared to be a homeless encampment among the sand dune bushes.

About the encampment:  I was informed that, during this time of pandemic chaos, the parks are currently not actively removing encampments. This will change when the crisis ends. Thank you for understanding this and accepting that it is what it is. We simply moved on and silently wished the (absent) campers well.

Thank you, one and all, for a successful beach clean-up! It is a bit like an organized “treasure hunt”: you never know what you’ll find, which probably intrigues the brain, fooling you into thinking that picking up trash is a blast! I am delighted that YOU think so, too.

We will be picking a day during Thanksgiving week to go out to clean up a beach, based on the weather forecast and tides. If you feel like getting outside for a genuine treasure hunt, and giving thanks for your ability to do so–to be mobile, to be able to help the environment and people’s enjoyment of it – then please join us for our next Day At The Beach!

>> How to join UWFA

Best wishes,

Claudia & Ron Green

Greeting, UWFA Members,

What a year this has been! I hope that you are doing well.
You may all have heard that the UW Club is closed for good, and we can no longer hold the Lunch Lectures and Scholarship Awards Dinners at the UW Club.  (The UWFA’s silver is stored safely for future events.)
Of course, the UWFA is an organization independent of the UW Club, and its events will continue in the future at another location. We are searching for venues that can accommodate the needs of the UWFA events.

The UW Faculty Auxiliary Board of Directors has made two important decisions related to the COVID-19 regulations that affect the UWFA organization’s activities.
1. All Lectures for 2020/2021 will be offered by Zoom by members of the UWFA.
Those lectures will be recorded for your convenience, and can be either watched

by Zoom or later online.

2. We will plan and adjust the Fall Reception according to the rules and regulations that are in place during the COVID-19 situation.

We will exercise extreme caution in reintroducing any UWFA events to keep all members safe.  You will get more       information about this later.

We are encouraging you to meet with your UWFA interest groups virtually and hope you can stay in touch with the members during this unprecedented time.

We kindly ask you to please pay your UWFA dues ( preferably by check), and please make donations for the Scholarship funds on the UWFA website. Your generous contributions will be appreciated and needed more than ever.

I am looking forward to meeting you in person or by Zoom and wish you and your families a safe and restful summer.  And, please look out for more information about the status of any UWFA events in 2020.

Best wishes and kind regards,

Christine Newcomb UWFA president.

We learned yesterday that our Past President Mahin (Mimi) Wagar passed away gently last Friday, March 13, 2020.  We are saddened at this news and remember her as the gentlest of ladies in our midst who could make anyone feel good.

Getting to know Mimi was a blessing that few could resist. We all admired the wonderful leader of this great circle of friendship, the UWFA, as she always put it.  Mimi’s way of drawing you in and making you feel like you were the most important person in the room surely had something to do with it.  Her wonderful flowery speech was like a warm blanket wrapped around you. She always made you feel so special.

In Mimi all the beauty and gentleness of the exquisite, ornate, and flowing designs of the Farsi script and calligraphy of Ancient Persia were manifest and she was a Persian gift to us, one that disarmed us with kindness and whose gentle embrace we will miss so much.  We treasure Mimi’s memory.  She led the UWFA as President in 1991, and served our group in so many ways with devotion, grace, and charm.

We will let you know when we learn about a memorial service for her.  Her long-time friend, Carol Hol, will write a more detailed article about Mimi for the next newsletter.  In the meantime, we send our heartfelt condolences to Mimi’s husband, Alan Wagar, and to her entire family.  They and we have all lost a very wonderful woman, one who will be sorely missed.

 

Sincerely,

Dagmar Shannon and Nancy Kenagy

UWFA Co-Presidents

I am very sad to report the passing of Kay Spelman, a wonderful friend to many of us and a loyal, supportive member of UWFA. She passed away peacefully on July 7, 2019.

Though born in Mount Vernon in 1938, Kay spent her Junior High and High School years in Yakima and then attended University of Washington to study education. On her way to California for her first teaching position she met, however, a young and handsome Army Officer from California named Sandy (Francis) Spelman. They fell in love and were married on August 19, 1961 in Yakima.

Kay and Sandy moved to Seattle after their wedding, raised two children and devoted their lives to their family. When her children reached high school age she returned to teaching for a number of years. She was active as a volunteer at her Assumption school, Assumption church, Francis Hoffman Circle, Solid Ground Sand Point Housing and the UW Faculty Auxiliary, where she served as President in 1988. Kay was an early participant with Barbara Garlid in starting the Visiting Faculty Housing Service and she volunteered there for more than 30 years. She also served as editor of the UWFA newsletter and also belonged to several interest groups. Kay made many friends in the Faculty Auxiliary and she will be missed.

The Spelmans were a close knit family and took trips together every year, usually around the state. Those trips were adored and looked forward to by all members of the family.

Kay leaves behind her beloved husband Sandy, their children, grandchildren and the most recent member of the family, her great-grandson.

On March 1st, Alvin Eller, husband of Ruth Eller and long-time UWFA member, died at Horizon House.

Alvin and Ruth were married for 66 years and they moved to Seattle after a successful dental practice of 33 years in Southbury, Connecticut. Alvin enjoyed the UWFA and attended many events such as the Luncheon Lecture Series and the Spring Luncheon. He also was devoted to his time in Southbury and loved Horizon House, where he participated in the OK Choral Choir. Always fun loving, Alvin was an avid fisherman and a great pool and poker player.

Alvin is survived by his loving wife Ruth and his daughter Janna Michael, who lives in Warburg NC, and by their grand- and great-grandchildren.

The French Conversation Group’s annual Bastille Day party on July 14^th was historic.  It marked not only the 50^th anniversary of our celebration of “le Quatorze, but also 50 years of Yolande Siki’s leadership.  Since the late 1960’s our “professor”, mentor, and friend has guided our efforts to improve and maintain our French fluency with enormous wit and patience.

With her help, beginners have blossomed, practiced speakers become more confident and the truly fluent have provided incentive and encouragement  Everyone has looked forward to brief bi-monthly escapes into French and enjoyed the friendships grown from our shared experience.

The 14^th’s festivities began on a familiar note: food, drink, talk, laughter. Our activity even drew a condo resident who followed the sound of his favorite language to the club room and asked if he could join the party.  He could, and he did, running upstairs for another bottle of wine.

And for dessert, a Bastille Day cake with a frosted  Eiffel Tower  and an inscription to Yolande.  Happily, Francois Siki was with us to help toast his mother with ample champagne, thanks to hostess, Helen  Szbalya.

Finally, Laurel Lisez led the ritual singing of La Marseillaise.   We may still stumble in the shaky spots in words and music, but we clearly remember the past chorus of old friends, those who always took the high notes and the basses who boomed below.  Fifty years of memories ……!

Vive l’Amitié!

Vive la France!