By TERYL ZARNOW
There are bargains to be had at Miss Charity's Attic, a thrift shop in Los Alamitos.
It's a clean and cozy store selling used clothing and household items. Here, it's possible to take home a treasure for a quarter. Donated items raise funds for philanthropies of the South Coast Chapter of the National Charity League.
Joy Harn, president of the South Coast Chapter of the National Charity League, talks to a young customer over the counter of the League's thrift store in Los Alamitos.
This chapter of the National Charity League is celebrating its 50th anniversary, but it's not the longevity that intrigues – it's the lineage. This is a matriarchy, an organization of mothers and daughters who pledge to volunteer six years together.
Joanne Fernbach, 64, joined National Charity League in 1979 with her seventh-grade daughter, Joy, and served as president in 1984-85. Today Joy Harn, 44, volunteers in the league with her daughters, Hailey and Hannah, and serves as president herself.
On Fridays at the thrift store you're likely to find Joy, Hailey or Hannah behind the counter, steaming clothes or ringing up sales.
"Doing this with my Mom is different than her telling me to go do this," explains Hailey, 16. "It shows she cares, too."
There are lessons to be learned and sisterhood to share in National Charity League, and those are the real treasures.
Many mothers will admit that somewhere between junior high and high school the daughter who used to hold your hand to skip across the street can find you an embarrassment in public. She is concerned about the opinions of friends – sometimes more than family.
This can be prime time for drama, but on a different stage it can also be an opportunity to model your values and bolster your relationship.
If teen-age years can be the worst of times, Harn agrees, they can also be the best of times for mothers to volunteer with their daughters.
"When you're together doing something that has nothing to do with either of you, it takes it away from being about you ... It gives you a meaningful focus -- instead of arguing over a dress."
National Charity League is focused on good works. But it's also about honoring the mother-daughter bond while instilling values and developing leadership skills.
At Christmas time, for example, the girls are given a budget to shop for a specific needy family. They are motivated to get the most for their money.
"You can lecture a kid, but this way you show them that the price of a pair of jeans can feed a family for a week," Harn says. "That is so meaningful."
Members of the South Coast Chapter come from the Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Cypress and Seal Beach areas. Mothers and daughters enter as a class each year, starting in seventh grade and continuing through high school.
This chapter has about 125 mothers plus their daughters at different levels. An additional 90 mothers are sustaining members, like Fernbach, who continue after their daughters graduate. A junior group, with 45 members, volunteers but has no daughters in the program.
Most mothers and daughters volunteer about 100 hours each per year for designated local causes and fundraisers that benefit the disabled, low-income, elderly and homeless. Chapter members give away 20,000 hours a year.
Sometimes, Harn notes, the teachable moment comes later, on the drive home.
"There is the conversation ... The chance to listen to them express what they've learned."
This past year the South Coast Chapter donated $70,000 to 14 local non-profits and funded 35 college scholarships totaling $67,385.
There is something at once quaint and yet radically modern about National Charity League.
The mothers are called "patronesses" and the girls are "ticktockers," perhaps because they track their volunteer hours. Graduating seniors are honored at a fancy debutante-esque dance. The eighth-grade class puts on a tea for the incoming seventh-graders, and the sustainers teach them how. Those skills haven't changed.
"We teach them how to pour tea," Fernbach says. "We teach them how to write thank you notes."
Years ago, she adds, the league had a sorority feel for a generation of stay-at-home mothers. Today, she says there has been an "awakening."'
More than half these mothers work outside the home. Meetings are held at night, says Harn, a practicing attorney.
There are other subtle changes.
As the girls conduct their class meetings they have always learned leadership skills – but in the past it was almost more as a promise for the future.
"We offered training and hoped the opportunity was there," Fernbach notes.
Her daughter explains that while today more women model leadership roles, there might be fewer opportunities for daughters to learn these skills with their own mothers and their friends' mothers.
"When Hailey earned her 50 hours in the thrift store, I was with her," Harn says. "You're not sending your daughter out to do this; it's go do this with me."
Fernbach admits it was a thrill to see her daughter installed as president of the chapter.
"I watched with a good deal of pride."
Harn takes pride in Hailey and Hannah. She wants her daughters to understand that you don't have to donate millions to make a difference.
"It can just be two hours of babysitting. Your time is usually most meaningful."
The lessons seem to be taking hold.
"You know there are people who need stuff; you think, 'whatever'," says Hannah, 13. "But when you pack a basket for a person, you think of the people who need this stuff."
Hailey says the lessons are less abstract to her now.
"Just because I'm blessed with an amazing family, it doesn't need to show. It's having what you need and realizing other people need more."