Gladys Kohn\u2019s philanthropic contributions have evolved over the years, but her efforts, which range from advocating for women\u2019s health to restoring the La Jolla Historical Society\u2019s Wisteria Cottage, all stem from her insistence that “the jewel” is worth preserving. Kohn and her husband moved to La Jolla in 1986 when her husband\u2019s job at Foodmaker, Inc. brought them to the beautiful coastal gem. Although she was a newcomer in town at the time, it was not in Kohn\u2019s nature to stand idle. She had an itch to volunteer her time and get involved in the community. “My family has always been involved in community service on some level. It\u2019s always been in my blood,” she said. “I joined Soroptimist because it was a way to meet people. Through Soroptimist you make a lot of friends, and we\u2019ve done some really great things for the community as well.” Soroptimist International of La Jolla was founded in 1947 to improve the lives of women and girls in the community and around the world, as well as accomplish a number of service projects based on individual community need. “I\u2019ve always been interested in women\u2019s health, and we had a very active health committee at Soroptimist,” Kohn said. “We realized there was no research done on women\u2019s health at the time. Some of our members went to Washington, [D.C.] and we lobbied the Health and Human Services Department on women\u2019s health and set up a health symposium with them.” The actions taken on by the Soroptimist of La Jolla\u2019s health committee in 1994 led to the creation of an entirely new entity, the Dorris A. Howell Foundation, which dedicates its efforts to providing $3,000 scholarship grants to students who conduct research on women\u2019s health issues. “Dr. Dorris Howell is a retired pediatric oncologist. Dorris was a member of the club at the time, and she\u2019s been such a huge influence in women\u2019s health and the areas of the hospice movement,” she said. “So when she was out of town one time, we decided to name the foundation after her.” The nonprofit that was created out of the La Jolla Soroptimists\u2019 health committee has been successful over the years in granting more than 150 scholarships for students, primarily at UCSD, San Diego State University and the Cal State schools, which focus their research on women\u2019s health. “It was a great thing that happened,” she said. “You wouldn\u2019t think it\u2019s a lot of money, but we\u2019re really seeing results.” Some of the subjects that have been researched, thanks in part to financial support from the Dorris A. Howell Foundation, include cervical cancer, breast cancer, ovarian carcinoma and Parkinson\u2019s disease, among many other health-related topics. In addition to co-founding the foundation, one thing led to another and Kohn also became involved at the La Jolla Historical Society, where she has served on the Secret Garden Tour committee for 13 years. Last year, she served as chairwoman of the committee, which creates annual tours of tucked-away gardens in La Jolla to benefit the restoration of Wisteria Cottage. “I really enjoy working on that and other projects. I would hope that everyone does things to make them happy. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about,” she said. “I love La Jolla. I love living in La Jolla, and the town is just so well worth preserving.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gladys Kohn\u2019s philanthropic contributions have evolved over the years, but her efforts, which range from advocating for women\u2019s health to restoring the La Jolla Historical Society\u2019s Wisteria Cottage, all stem from her insistence that “the jewel” is worth preserving. Kohn and her husband moved to La Jolla in 1986 when her husband\u2019s job at Foodmaker, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Community-driven volunteer helps keep jewel shining","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}