Maryland Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians

President’s Message

The Howard County Division of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians was established in 2000. We are a small group, currently sixteen ladies, and are always happy to welcome new members to our Division.

Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia, Maryland. No business meetings are held in July and August. In addition to our business meetings we hold social gatherings such as cook-outs and “dining out nights”. We also enjoy joining our Hibernian Sisters from other Divisions for the many State events planned throughout the year.

In addition to supporting National and State Charities, for the last three years our division put together and mailed care packages to Chaplains in Iraq and Afghanistan for distribution to our troops. We also support the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center Child Life Department by providing toys and a wide variety of other items which are used as gifts in their weekly “closed circuit television Hospital Bingo program”.  In addition to typical Bingo letters, medical items are pictured on the cards rather than numbers thus enabling the children to learn more about medical equipment, terms etc. to hopefully assuage their fears.   Every child who participates receives a gift and there are often as many as 55 children who participate each week.  We learned of this program from one of our members who is a Nurse Manager in the Pediatric Program at Hopkins.

A rather unique service we provide for our Sister Hibernians is making the official LAOH sashes.  The money we receive from the sale of the sashes is used to support our charitable endeavors.

Division Officers

• President: Patti Gifford
• Vice President: Mary Anne Sturm
• Secretary: Bernice Kish
• Treasurer: Sharon Strobel 
• Irish Historian: Carolyn Cipolla
• Missions and Charities: Vacant
• Catholic Action: Carol Hayes Gegner
• Mistress-at-Arms: Vacant
• Sentinel: Vacant
• Chaplain: Fr. Matthew Buening