Rachael's Women's Center (www.rachaels.org) is the only day shelter and center for homeless and formerly homeless women in Northwest Washington, D.C. Women seek out this home-like townhouse for assistance with various services to get back on their feet. These include rest, meals, workshops, counseling and job search assistance.

Yvonne Boggan, president, and members and officers of the Zonta Club of Washington, D.C., (www.zontawashingtondc.org) have enthusiastically supported this small nonprofit through fundraisers during the last two years, and plan to continue. Zonta's support of Rachael's involved a donation. The money was used to repair one of two bathrooms, which had become totally unusable. Rachael's would have faced temporary closure for these repairs if anything had happened to the other bathroom. Zonta Club members received a heartfelt thank-you letter from Rachael's staff on behalf of the staff and their clients. "For the holidays last year, Zonta members also purchased and donated a lot of personal items, and we brought them to the shelter on Christmas Eve," Boggan recalls. "As we entered, everyone's eyes widened. They couldn't believe all of the items were for them. You should have seen the smiles! They really appreciated it."

The Zonta Club of Washington, D.C., which is a member of Zonta International (www.zonta.org), may seem unfamiliar. But it is actually a well-established and far-reaching women's organization. The original chapter was organized in November 1919 in Buffalo, NY. Today, there are 33,000 members in 1,254 clubs in 68 countries, and many clubs have separate nonprofit foundations for fundraising, to which all club members belong. Open to professional women of all backgrounds and experiences, membership is by invitation only. Being a Zontian means raising the status of women locally and around the globe through service, advocacy and educational scholarships, including the Amelia Earhart Fellowship, in honor of the aviator who was also a Zontian. Since 1938, the United States-sponsored award has been given to female graduate students worldwide who specialize in aeronautics.

International projects include raising awareness, and the eradication of, the trafficking of women and ending domestic violence. Clubs also support microcredit projects to help African HIV/AIDS widows in Ghana and other countries form small businesses, pay for medicines and so on. Zonta has worked with CARE, UNIFEM, UNICEF and other relief agencies. In the past, women's education was emphasized. Today, clubs around the world donate one-third of monies raised each club year to international projects. "If you support policies that help women and their children, you'll also be helping the world," Boggan says. She has been a member since 1987. Once she learned about Zonta's mission, she was hooked. "I had not heard of it before, and it just seemed like a very good organization for me," she says.

Zonta International provides many learning and development opportunities. Officers of the Washington, D.C., chapter, founded in 1922, recently enjoyed attending a weekend District Conference that helped them develop themselves as officers and strengthen the club. A highlight for them was winning, for the second time, the Governor's Award, based on the best overall performance for the prior club year.

Officers are elected for one-year terms. Zonta's District 3 includes chapters in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, among others. District Conferences allow members in different clubs to meet and share ideas. All clubs look forward to the International Zonta Convention, which happens every two years. Next year it will be in Rotterdam. Past gatherings have been held in Germany, Iceland, Australia, Greece and India.

Local Zonta Clubs concentrate on service projects, fundraising and scholarships solely within their respective cities. Past Washington, D.C., Zonta projects have included Girls Inc. (www.girlsinc.org) at Howard University, N Street Village, Moms 'n Tots and D.C. CASA. There's always a need for volunteers. The Club meets the first Wednesday of the month at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel for dinner and invites speakers on wide-ranging topics.

Scholarships are awarded in August, and at the November meeting the scholarship winners speak. Zonta Club awards scholarships to female students attending District of Columbia universities. Additional scholarships are awarded to women pursuing medical school and who are pursuing advanced nursing degrees and wish to teach nursing.

Carol Beaver has been a Zontian since 1965 and has been to every international conference for the past 20 years. She has held many leadership positions in the Club, including serving as president twice and manager of the Zonta Foundation. Beaver's mother was a role model. "My mother was a Zontian in Framingham, MA. She loved it, and that made me want to join here in Washington," she says. "The opportunity to give back to women and the world, to be part of an organization and to meet Club members from all around the country and world is remarkable. I was very shy at first, and it took a while to adjust to helping out, taking the lead or working with others in a group, but it's been worth it."

Now retired, Beaver had a distinguished career as a cartographer and geographer with the federal government, beginning with the Army Map Service and ending with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "I love history, but didn't see it as a viable career choice. So my mother, a geographer, climatologist and teacher, suggested that I major in geography at George Washington University. It was a great choice, and 15 years into my career I decided to get my master's in public administration to move into management."

Returning to the classroom after being a worker challenged Beaver. Her husband was supportive, but there were times when she wanted to give up. Enter Angela Ricardelli, a Zonta Club member who pushed her to continue and cheered her on.

"I'm glad I did it," Beaver says. "I don't know if I would have done it if I'd had children. But to today's women, I say that anytime you have an opportunity for more education, go ahead and take it."

Marta Calderón joined the Zonta Club in Costa Rica in 1983. Two years later, when she relocated to Washington, D.C. to work at the Inter-American Development Bank, she transferred her membership to the Washington, D.C. chapter. "Zonta gave me networking contacts as I moved up into my professional career in the U.S., and the opportunity to give back to the community by helping women in D.C. and the world," Calderón says, now a senior IT auditor at the IDB. "All the women in Zonta are my friends. If you are having problems, or just need a listening ear, someone is always there to help," she says.

She notes that women today are moving up much more rapidly in their careers, and she would like to see younger women joining Zonta. Calderón has coordinated service projects for the Club, explaining that ideas for nonprofits come from all members and community organizations, and that formal requests for proposals have to be submitted to the service committee and voted on before they are accepted.

Diana Garcia, vice president of the Zonta Club of Washington, D.C., often wears her Zonta Club pin, which includes a Sioux symbol meaning "banded together for a purpose." "Zonta" means "honest" and "trustworthy" in the Sioux language. Some members enjoy wearing yellow rose lapel pins, which symbolize beauty and radiance. When others admire her pin, she finds that it's often a good way to tell people about the club. Assigned to Washington D.C. by the Air Force when she first joined in 1995, Garcia had already been selected as a delegate to the 2006 Zonta International Convention in Australia when she was offered a post-retirement job at the Pentagon. "I had to negotiate for time off within a month of starting a new job," she explained. After explaining the organization to her supervisor, he thought it was worthwhile and encouraged her to share Zonta with interested co-workers. And she was granted leave to go to the conference.

"Think of a women's club in 1938 creating a scholarship for women studying aeronautical sciences at the graduate level-that shows real vision and a commitment to women in science," Garcia says. "I joined Zonta because I wanted to be involved with an organization that helps women. I like that they are still very forward in their thinking and vision. I love hearing from both our Washington area and international scholarship recipients-who they are now and what are their plans. It's very inspiring."

Mary Ellen Bittner found out about the Zonta Club of Washington when she was asked to speak at a club meeting about her career as an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board. She is now an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration. The audience was welcoming, and Bittner was so impressed that she was delighted to be invited to join in 1982. Her term as Zonta International President ended last year. "I really liked the diversity of people and their experiences and talents," she says. "My education about international women's issues has been enhanced through Zonta's involvement in those issues, and that continues today."

Bittner has had the chance to mentor Zonta participants in The Advocacy Project (http://advocacynet.org) and non-United Nations groups World Learning Institute and the Afghan Institute of Learning.

"Being a part of Zonta is all about giving back to our communities and our world," says Bittner. "Zontians have been very fortunate, and we know that we owe something to those women who are not as fortunate as us. That's what advancing the status of women is all about."