They feed the needy, they help provide education for women and reading materials for children.

In between: Brunch.

It's all part of the packed schedule of the BAB Women's Club headquartered in Bayview, where women from across Kootenai County gather to consort and improve their local communities one small piece at a time.

"Sure beats the rest home, doesn't it?" said member Marge Degitz with a laugh. "It's fun, interesting, and we do help the community."

With year-round fundraisers to help local women - as well as students and the hungry - the 54-year-old women's club also dedicates monthly brunch meetings to networking and bringing in speakers to discuss current events.

"It's just a good organization," said Degitz, 78, adding that she always participates when the group makes a parade appearance. "We all work together."

But the nonprofit wouldn't mind seeing some more pairs of hands doling out soup at the annual Christmas Bazaar fundraiser, or toting in brownies for bake sales, said President Barbara Balbi.

"A lot of the older members have moved away to warmer places or to be with their children," Balbi said.

Previously boasting 60 members and up, the group has dwindled to just above 40, she said.

Still not bad, but it means that current members have to pitch in all the more, she said.

"Most of 'em (are up for it)," she said.

But maybe there are more women out there who could use the camaraderie and feeling of service the group provides, she said.

Some things they do are simple.

Like how at every meeting members bring in items to mail to soldiers overseas, or haul in canned goods for the ABC Food Bank in Athol.

"I think Athol is a depressed community with a lot of people out of work, so we help the food bank," Degitz said.

The group also puts on a Christmas bazaar, complete with a hot soup meal, silent auctions and a raffle for a quilt made by BAB members. On top of that is the annual July bazaar.

Beneficiaries of their fundraisers include Athol Elementary School's library, the Idaho Girls State program - which the group helps in conjunction with the American Legion - America Reads and the Bayview Community Center.

The group also provides a $1,000 scholarship for a female student at North Idaho College.

"Basically, they (the members) all get out and help," Balbi said.

They take care of each other, too, she added.

The ladies drive other members with cancer to treatment, for instance. And members who are nurses and former nurses immediately came to Balbi's aid when she had surgery a few years ago.

"I had to be in bed three months, and they came every day to change the dressings on my incision," Balbi said. "That's the kind of people they are."

Jan Dexter, 69, said she has continued participating in the club even after moving from Athol to Coeur d'Alene last year.

The roughly hourlong drive to Bayview is worth keeping up a mission with the women she has worked and laughed with for 12 years.

"We all kind of have a common goal," Dexter said. "You get to give to other people, you get outside of yourself. You're not just sitting at home and just doing nothing."

Dexter particularly looks forward to helping make the quilt for the Christmas raffle.

She is thrilled by the ecstatic response of folks who win the spread, she said.

"It's neat that you're a part of something that's really beautiful," she said.

The group meets at 10 a.m. the fourth Tuesday of every month at the Bayview Community Center. There's also social time at 9:30 a.m., Balbi added.

Meetings last as long as they need to, Balbi said.

The group has a yearly membership fee of $10. To join, contact Balbi at: 683-6051.

Hard to imagine that the group started out in 1956 as a gaggle of girls exchanging recipes and sewing ideas, Balbi said. The original group named themselves BAB after Bayview-Athol-Belmont, the towns the members hailed from.

"They talked about cooking foods and preserving, crocheting. That's how it kind of was back then," Balbi said. "Then it evolved."