Kathy Eastman

From the moment you meet Kathy Eastman, you can’t help but like her. Every bit a classy, composed lady, she greets you with a kind smile and a firm, but gentle handshake. The day we met at Trinity Episcopal Church, a place very dear to Kathy, we sat in a cozy sitting room close enough to hear the soft concert music coming from nearby. It was the perfect setting to speak with an equally as calming person.

After leaving New Orleans for 15 years, Kathy returned and became a teacher at Trinity Episcopal School. Having a love of helping and a passion for people, Kathy became very involved in the Trinity community. She began participating in an outreach program called Stephen Ministry which matches you to a person who’s having a hard time in life, with anything from handling illness or losing a loved one or struggling with parenting. Someone that “just needs a listening ear, non-judgmental, and you’re not there to solve the problem. It was phenomenal because a lot of times you would end up getting so much from the relationship. I was [paired] with a woman for two and a half years and it was so enriching to both of us.”

Her involvement at Trinity started the ball rolling towards her inevitable involvement with the Junior League of New Orleans. A blind date at the time (with her now husband, John) became a relationship which introduced Kathy to amazing women in the New Orleans community. “It was really through John and the people he knew, particularly Fran Villere, who was just a real powerhouse in the League. She was President, and she was just a wonderful lady. She came up to John one day and she said, ‘We need to get Kathy in the League. Some friends that I didn’t know until I moved back here were the ones that sponsored me, and I’ve never looked back.”

Kathy officially joined the League in 1984, and found a secondary outlet to channel her passion for children’s education. She spoke specifically about when she chaired a League project called SAENO, a nod to Nancy Reagan’s “just say no to drugs” campaign. It brought League women into classrooms and onto panels to speak about substance abuse education, and gave the opportunity to host workshops for people to learn how to better educate kids in our community about tough topics.

Another JLNO project called Kids on the Block – “not the music!,” Kathy was quick to clarify – brought education to schools, free of charge, through the use of puppets and teaching children about the similarities between all of us. Many of the puppets looked different and

had different backstories, some with disabilities, but explained how we all live in the same community and how we can find the common threads which weave us all together.

In later years, while serving as the League’s Administrative Vice President, the current JLNO President would invite their executive team to a lunch with the current Sustainers, past Sustainers of the Year, and past Presidents. “We all got up to make a little report on what we were doing and I remember thinking when I left that day, ‘This is really neat. I’d love to come back to this.’” A few years later, Kathy was able to get her wish while serving as President, and coming back to one of the many moments which shaped her League experience.

“It’s been such an amazing gift to my life to meet so many wonderful people. You always know that you want to give back to the community in which you live. And I love this crazy, indescribable place that we call New Orleans.”

When discussing the opportunities which these women and League have given Kathy, she explained how “the League not only gave me the training and exposure, but it also gave me the confidence to pull me into things that I never thought you could do. It’s one thing to stand in front of a classroom of children. It’s quite another to be on a board with all these women who are so accomplished, but there you are! It opened my world, it opened my eyes, and it opened my heart.”

Like most women in the League, these experiences are what helped shape Kathy as a person, which helps shape why the League is so important to our community. She discussed how pulling women together from all over the city, with different gifts and focuses, can show us how we can make a change in the world. Kathy explained that if we draw from each other’s strengths, and support each other, we can work together to find new and different facets of the community which we can make a difference.

“I think those of us that have moved on to [League] Sustainer-hood can tell who had training at the League and who didn’t. I think the Junior League is such a wonderful place to nurture, to build, to inspire individual women who collectively, or as part of another group, can go on to work with others, to respect others.

You’ve got to give everybody an opportunity to say what they want to say. You need to hear different points of view. The world doesn’t walk in step. Right now, I wish the League could have more influence on policy holders in this country about how you comport yourself, and how you respect others that have a different opinion than you.”

While speaking with such passion and conviction, it was an easy time to tie Kathy’s thoughts into how she feels being a part of the Junior League of New Orleans as it approaches its centennial anniversary. After a thoughtful pause, Kathy said, “It takes my breath away. It is inspiring. I think about those women that started this organization here in New Orleans, with a dream, and said, ‘Come on, ladies, we can do this!’

And it’s grown, and it’s beautifully grown, in a way where we’re reaching out to more sectors of this wonderful city we love. We’ve grown a lot and to look back and see where it’s gone, where it’s come from, the fact that the thrift shop started in the French Quarter! That was formative of a difference we made. I [still] remember being a provisional and having thrift shop shifts.”

As Kathy recounts memories of her time in the League and even the changes it has made over the years, you can tell Kathy is immensely proud of the work and progress the League has made. Smiling and softly clapping her hands, Kathy ends with a confident, “Good job, ladies. Good job.”

Being named Sustainer of the Year during the centennial of the Junior League of New Orleans, Kathy remains confident that “nobody gets [here] were it not for the people that are around them.” Thoughtfully thinking of how she has served and her hopes to continue serving, Kathy says she is “grateful and will do anything to keep [the League] a vital organization for the next hundred years. I care about it and I care about the women that I’ve gotten to know so well. And I care about the efforts that you all are putting forth.”

Being reminded of the present as the music streaming in from the chapel began to fade, Kathy wrapped up our time together with a simple, yet impactful, thought regarding her journey with the Junior League: “I’m grateful for it. I loved it. Even when there were some tears shed and a little angst when things happen that you have to deal with. But I’m so grateful for it.”

As we made, what Kathy referred to as, “a gracious exit,” it was easy to feel confident in the work Junior League is doing for our community. Built on the shoulders and minds of incredible women since 1924, Mrs. Kathy Eastman is another example of how the Junior League of New Orleans will easily continue to thrive for the next hundred years.