Janusian Club revives Ladies Night Out

The West Lafayette Janusian Club presented In Fine Feather for Ladies Night Out May 12 at Ridgewood Middle School.

The evening started off with an early bird auction for rights to the buffet and cheesecake from Lori’s Heavenly Sweets. There also was music, a fashion show, women-owned businesses featured and bingo.

Mayor of West Lafayette Jesse Tubbs said, “A lot of girls helped collect many of the donations for the night. Alicia Hunt did all the decorations, Jael Malenke helped with the programs, 15-year-old Audrey Tubbs helped collect a large amount of the donations and Astrid Ely did all of the art — all original art from a 14-year-old girl here at Ridgewood.”

In addition to serving as mayor, Tubbs also is with We R WL, a nonprofit group that does community service activities.

"Erica Gress came to me about nine weeks ago and said, 'I would like to bring the Janusian Club Ladies Night Out back.' We had such a good time playing bingo with Oren Griffith and eating dinner and bidding on some awesome baskets the last time, so we decided to do it. We put it together in a very short amount of time," Tubbs said. "After speaking to the Janusian Club, they were very excited to do it with us.

"We had to cancel after COVID six years ago. Erica really missed it, and they decided to have the event in May this year. This event is much smaller than the previous ones. Typically, it was about 300 in attendance, and this year about 160 community ladies attended. The ladies enjoyed a dinner provided by local businesses and bingo."

The money goes back into the community, and the club also has a scholarship. The Janusian Club donates to Starkey Lawrence's church Shepherds Christian Assembly and the fire department. They give smoke detectors to the kindergarten kids and batteries to the first-graders. The electronic sign in front of the school was donated by the Janusian Club, as well as the mural on the pool house and some of the art, Defend the Dome.