Joliet Zonta Club Awards Woman Of The Year

(The following press release was submitted to Joliet Patch by Bonnie Winfrey, PR Committee Chair of The Zonta Club of the Joliet Area.)

JOLIET, IL — The Zonta Club of the Joliet Area awarded their annual ‘Woman of the Year’ honor to Lisa Pappas.

Lisa joined the Zonta Club of the Joliet Area in 2017 at the urging of Library Trustee, Dr. Patricia L. Miller, a founding member of the organization.

Lisa Pappas, the director of the Plainfield Area Library, has worked in public libraries in the Chicago area for almost 30 years. She has been serving the community of Plainfield in different capacities for 20 years, spending the last six years as library director.

"I am honored to be recognized by my fellow volunteers for the contributions I have made for the club," says Lisa. “Much of what I have done is behind the scenes —designing and building the website, updating social media, curating content for the monthly newsletters, etc., and while that's all important, it's not as visible as other roles. ZCJA has made it a point to value all roles within our organization when seeking nominations; I am humbled that club members chose to celebrate my contributions over the past 5 years."

The ‘Woman of the Year’ award is a one-time honor which allows club members to nominate a worthy member. Joliet Area Zontians are encouraged to thoughtfully nominate one of their own who has utilized creativity, time and effort to help make a positive difference. This can be through active participation in support of meetings, service projects, publications/websites, fundraising, communications, recruitment; or other significant activities such as representing our Club at district and national meetings. Certainly, any and all activities advancing the status of women should be considered.

The Woman of the Year award has usually gone annually.

President Beth Colvin says the Woman of the Year Committee chose Lisa for her outstanding contributions to Zonta. “The committee applauds her for her role as a director on the Executive Board since 2018 and Corresponding Secretary, whose role is to disseminate all club correspondence and create a monthly newsletter. She has been an active member of the PR Committee and the LUNAFEST film festival event planning committee for the past four years.”

In addition to executive board and committee duties, Ms. Pappas took on the responsibility of re-designing the club’s website and is responsible for all updates and maintenance of the site. She has been an outstanding member of the PR committee with support of the new podcast, Zonta on the Move” for which she is a host and producer. She is an effective ambassador for our club.

The Zonta Club of the Joliet Area is committed to advancing the status of women and girls locally and globally. Locally, the club provides a number of scholarships to women and girls to continue their educations. Globally, as an arm of Zonta International, a non-governmental organization working internationally with the UN, funds raised from local clubs aid the larger organization in many projects which improve the lives of women and girls.

For more information, visit www.jolietzonta.org and look for our upcoming events and membership information.