The Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club celebrated its 100th anniversary at The Blue Rock Restaurant and Bar earlier this month. In twinkling dresses, faux feather boas and pearls, members danced to live music, sipped cocktails and listened to speeches from the club’s president, State Representative Natalie Blais, and retired NASA astronaut Col. Cady Coleman.

“It was really about just how powerful women are,” said Holly Sonntag-Ramirez, who owns The Blue Rock Restaurant with her husband. From the live music to the buffet, speakers, flowers and display, the night took a year to come together.

Tables colored with artifacts and information on the club’s century of community projects lined the entry room of Blue Rock. Miss Eunice Avery, the woman whose words started it all, peered at members from a framed black and white photo. According to past club president Penny Spearance, Avery left her home in Springfield and hopped on a ship to travel the world in the early 1900s. When she landed in Shelburne Falls, she shared her adventures and knowledge to a group of 60 women. By July of 1925, 60 became 170, and the organization officially joined the State Federation.

“The women had recently gotten the right to vote, and they were feeling empowered,” said current club president and Shelburne resident Christine Baronas. “They wanted to be together and learn about the world around them and current events.”

“And make an impact on the community,” Spearance added.

According to the celebration’s brochure, in 1929, when the trolley bridge over the Deerfield River lost its ability to withstand any vehicles, the Women’s Club repurposed the bridge into the Bridge of Flowers, or the “bridge of beauty,” the club’s first name for their creation.

“It’s an iconic landmark in Massachusetts,” Rep. Blais said. She added that the Shelburne Falls staple draws tourists every year from across the country.

But the club’s impact runs deeper than beautification. During the darkness of the Great Depression, members donated Christmas baskets, clothes and blankets to locals in need. In the 1930s, the club also created a skating rink, hosted health talks for girls and their mothers, sponsored Camp Fire Girls, and sewed and provided clothes to kids in the community.

The club also helped fund a diphtheria clinic that served 133 children and extended their helping hands to World War II relief during the 1940s, sending packages to children in need in France, forming Red Cross sewing groups and collecting four tons of warm clothing.

In 1975, the club established its scholarship for Mohawk Trail Regional School students, an initiative that continues today.

“We plan to continue the legacy of learning about the world around us, enjoying each other’s company and community service,” Baronas said. “These are the founding principles, and we still do it.”

More recently, the club hosted a lecture on the evolution of women’s fashion with Smith College professor Kiki Smith. “This year, we’re having programs that reflect celebrating women,” Spearance explained.

Attendees flipped through newspaper clips of these highlights at the centennial gathering. A letter from Susanna Minton Graham, the granddaughter of the club’s founding president, Alice Merrill Ware, also greeted visitors by the Blue Rock doors. A few days before the anniversary, longtime member Virginia “Ginny” Ray received the message all the way from St. Charles, Illinois.

Referring to her grandmother, Graham wrote, “I know without a doubt that she would be incredibly proud of this occasion.”

Through Ware’s diaries, Graham read her grandmother’s commitment to the club and discovered that Ware’s mother encouraged her daughter to attend the State Conference of the Massachusetts State Federation of Women’s Clubs and represent the organization.

“In that guidance from her mother, I can see the ripple effects that happen when women encourage other women to empower themselves,” Graham wrote. “By being part of a group like this, I can only imagine the many lives that are being influenced for the better.”

Rep. Blais said her speech addressed the club’s ripple effects on her own career.

“I could not be in this position without people like them lifting each other up through the years,” she said. “I’m standing on their shoulders.”

Between hors d’oeuvres and dancing, Blais presented Baronas with a citation from the Speaker of the House congratulating the club on a century of community service.

Before Blais, retired NASA astronaut Col. Cady Coleman spoke to the crowd of chatting attendees. Her remarks started with a confession: she never really liked history as a kid. But looking out at the faces in the audience, the Shelburne resident said she told the group her perspective shifted when she realized, “It’s the people that make history,” especially the women whose stories hide in the margins.

Coleman remembered feeling the club’s support from the International Space Station. While floating in the earth’s orbit, she received a message from the ground: women from Shelburne Falls had sent her homemade cookies. Coleman said the gift taught her colleagues about the spirit of her small town. “Shelburne became a place for them,” she said.

Reflecting on the night, Coleman sighed, “I’m still grinning.”