Chapter XC, California, Adds to P.E.O.!

You Add to P.E.O. is a fun initiative within the P.E.O. Sisterhood where chapters are challenged to add two or more active members by February 28, 2025. Chapters that meet this initiative are eligible for special recognition, including being featured on the P.E.O. website.

Chapter XC, Auburn, California, was selected for May! As of May 1, the chapter had added 3 new members since the beginning of the initiative. Read below to learn more about the chapter.

What does your chapter do for fun?

Chapter XC loves to get together, be it a planned event or a pop-up activity. Monthly we have Game Girls, an afternoon of hilarity! We seem to love flowers and have visited the Crystal Hermitage Gardens in our beautiful Sierra foothills to see their 5,000 tulips in bloom. We also visit Dawn Gardens, well known in Nevada County for their daffodils, rhododendrons, azaleas, dogwoods, roses and iris, depending on the time of year. With our BILs, we go on tours, be it to museums, a local bronze sculpture and oil paintings gallery or a glass-blowing studio. Every summer we visit a local winery and enjoy dinner and a tribute band and wine, of course! One of our annual events is Casino Night where we gamble our play money on blackjack, roulette and chuck-a-luck to earn prizes and raise money for chapter expenses. We always invite guests and hopefully find future P.E.O.s.

What has been your most successful fundraiser?

While we are well known in our small community for our upscale Trunk Sale – a garage sale out of the trunks of our cars at a central location – and we make good money on these every few years, our most successful fundraiser has been our annual P.E.O. Bus Trip. For several years we have taken 45-50 people to see a San Francisco Giants baseball game. We have lots of fun on the two-hour trip to the stadium –breakfast with coffee and Bloody Mary’s, trivia game, 50-50 raffle and a short talk about P.E.O. On the way home we have a special supper snack and serve wine, beer and margaritas. This year our bus trip will stay in the foothills and return to the Amador Flower Farm to see over 800 varieties of day lilies. We will provide a gourmet lunch followed by time to stroll through Sutter Creek, a California Gold Rush town with a Main Street lined with 19th century buildings and numerous antique shops, boutiques, wine tasting venues and even a brewery, something for everyone!

What is your best tip for finding new members?