Community Corner
Potomac Chase Women's Club Celebrates Back To School With Annual Champagne Brunch
North Potomac moms reconnect after a long summer to celebrate the beginning of the new school year.
The first day of school is a cause to celebrate in North Potomac with Potomac Chase Women’s Club Back-to-School Brunch.
It all started back in 1990 with a group of neighborhood moms commiserating about sending off their young ones to Kindergarten.
North Potomac resident, Tracy Weinstein, started the back-to-school event as a celebration of the end of summer break and the beginning of the school year.
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“It was just four moms at the bus stop, crying because our babies were growing up,” she said. “Over the years it grew into a celebration with champagne and breakfast, and us 'older' moms would help the Kindergarten moms get over their angst.”
And it wasn’t just the moms. “For a couple of years the dads came too,” adds Weinstein.
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Each year the festivities attracted more and more neighbors.
“Eventually it morphed into a Potomac Chase Women’s Club (PCWC) event,” said Tracy Husted, a long time back-to-school bruncher and North Potomac resident.
Many of the members have children attending Jones Lane Elementary School, but the back-to-school brunch draws women with children of all ages. The children move on to middle school and high school but the moms keep coming.
North Potomac resident, Becky Wolfe, has been attending the event for over a decade and remembers a time when the brunch lasted all day and “people would come and go in waves.”
The back-to-school brunch is a great way for the community to connect before the PCWC’s official yearly kick off meetings in early September.
PCWC is a community women’s club that averages 130 members from all around the 20878 zip code. Throughout the year, PCWC sponsors numerous social activities and community service projects including book clubs, mahjong, bunco, playgroups, wine tastings, Santa’s mittens and Fourth of July parade.
The Autumn Fun Fest at Aberdeen Park is one of PCWC’s main community events with a costume parade, games for the kids and chili-cookoff.
Since moving into the community, Kate Carter has been attending the back to school brunch and is now serving as PCWC activities coordinator. The women’s club was one of the reasons she chose to live in the neighborhood in the first place. “PCWC has been an amazing resource of women in the community, as well as in the local schools. We are never leaving!”