The Michigan State Conference

It is the highest honor to visit with Daughters across the country, absorbing their energy and sharing with them the goals of our new administration. September 19-21 found me doing just that while enjoying the 119^th State Conference of the Michigan Daughters in beautiful Lansing. And I do mean enjoying! These Great Lakes Daughters are both welcoming and inspiring.  I wish that space allowed me to share every highlight of my time with them, but I am regrettably limited here to just a handful.

I am so grateful to State Regent Gina LaCroix for her superb hospitality and her capable leadership. She has chosen to support the construction of Michigan’s two Fisher Houses as her State Regent’s Project. I am ashamed to say that I knew little about these wonderful “homes away from home,” and I felt fortunate to learn more about them from Kate Melcher, Executive Director of Fisher House Michigan, the Saturday luncheon speaker.  The Fisher House Foundation builds homes where the families of active duty military and veterans may stay free of charge, while a loved one is in a nearby military or VA medical center. There are 84 operating Fisher Houses that have saved military and veterans’ families more than $450 million in lodging and transportation costs since their inception in the early 1990s. What a wonderful purpose.

Though it was my first visit to Michigan, I felt as though I had come home. That’s in large part because for seven years, I have had the privilege of being an Associate Member of Stoney Creek Chapter, which hosted a too-fabulous-to-adequately-describe luncheon before the start of the conference. These ladies have “adopted” me due to my friendship with their past Regent and current Michigan State Vice Regent Kelly VanWormer, whom I met after she attended a New York Luncheon at Congress many years ago. I suspect that my relationship with Kelly may be similar those that you have made with vibrant, smart and patriotic women across the nation whom you met through your involvement in DAR. These fun friendships form a strong and reinforcing bond that binds us together in service -- sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but always grateful that our lives are infinitely richer due to active membership in DAR.