Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Maternal health focus of film, luncheon
Garden club gathers for anniversary
Bentonville Garden Club members and friends celebrated the group’s 75th anniversary with a luncheon May 23 held at the home of club member Cynthia Coughlin in Centerton.
The club was founded in 1948 by 20 Bentonville women with a mission “to make Bentonville the most beautiful and friendliest city in Northwest Arkansas.” Projects that have helped them fulfill their mission include garden therapy, youth education, city beautification, conservation efforts and the establishment of an endowment at the University of Arkansas of $115,000 that provides scholarships for students pursuing a degree in horticulture, according to their website.
The club will hold its first fundraiser of the year, a fashion show, Aug. 15 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers.
Garden club members and friends gathered to mark the milestone included DeLinda Mace, Sandy Edwards, Becky McCoy, Susan Kerr, Judy Geigle, Connie Ciskowski, Vera Amato, JoAnn Amato, Tarsha Shepard, Bridget Kittrell, Debbie Matteri, Linda Stiles, Susan Todd, Lori Eakins, Melody Martens, Tami Beaver, Julie Knight, Susan Schallhorn, Deborah Reynolds and Vickie Barnett.
MATERNAL HEALTH FILM FOCUS
Danyelle Musselman, Tammy Sun and Alice Walton played hosts to an invitation-only luncheon June 13 that helped kick off the Bentonville Film Festival. The event featured a preview of “Giving Birth in America: Arkansas” and discussion of the film about maternal health. Guests learned that Arkansas leads the United States in maternal mortality, with 40 deaths per 100,000 annually.
Geena Davis, festival founder and chairwoman, provided opening remarks at the luncheon held at The Momentary in Bentonville.
Erin Hawley Newbolt and Musselman shared with luncheon guests their stories of maternal health challenges and Sun, founder and CEO of Carrot Fertility, said, “Maternal health is the weather vane for the health of society a whole. It points us in the direction of where we have gone wrong and where we need to make important critical investments to course-correct.”
The “Giving Birth in America” film series is a project of Every Mother Counts, “a nonprofit whose mission is to make pregnancy and childbirth safe, equitable and respectful for every mother, everywhere,” according to a news release.
The panel discussion following the screening of the Arkansas chapter of the series featured series director Nicole Mackinlay Hahn and Arkansas-based health care experts Sharmila Makhija, MD, MBA, CEO and founding dean of the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, and Zenobia Harris, DNP, MPH, executive director of the Arkansas Birthing Project.