What makes someone uproot their life, leave behind decades in Las Vegas, and start over in Johnston County? For Trish Perna, it wasn’t a career move or a change of pace—it was something far more personal. Now, as president of the Woman’s Club of Clayton, she’s leading projects that fund foster homes, support local kids, and even transform community spaces into holiday destinations. But here’s the real question: what does it take to build a club that isn’t about status or socializing, but about rolling up your sleeves and getting things done?

We talked to her a little bit about the history of the Women's Club of Johnston County. A lot of the different community service projects they do and what they do with the money they raise, and that anybody that is a woman over the age of 18 can be a member. You do not have to be 70 years old, and you don't have to be rich to be a member of the Women's Club of Clayton.

So if you're interested in community service and the things that the Women's Club is involved in, listen in.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden, and on today's episode, we have the president of the Clayton Women's Club or the Women's Club of Clayton, depending on how you wanna say it. Trish Perna, she's here to talk to us a little bit about her journey to Johnston County and her journey to Johnston County is similar to a lot of people's journey to Johnston County. How she got involved in community service initially and what drew her to the Clayton Women's Club, along with some of the activities of the Clayton Women's Club and how you can get involved.

Congressman Brad Knott. We've had many great guests Donald O'Meara, realtor. We've had Adrian O'Neal, the County Parks Rec director on twice. So anyway, lot of great people have been on this podcast, so keep listing. We'll have more great episodes coming in the future. If you know anybody who would like to be on this podcast, reach out to us on through our social media channels at Best of Johnston County.

Welcome, Trish.

Trisha Perna: Thank you.

Jonathan Breeden: That whole I

Trisha Perna: thank you for having me, Jonathan.

Jonathan Breeden: I know, I think I probably repeated myself in that intro. We batched record these like a lot of podcasters, right.

Trisha Perna: Okay.

Trisha Perna: Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: And so sometimes the stuff starts to, to run together.

Trisha Perna: I was sitting here listening to you say all that stuff and I being, I wonder how long it actually took him to memorize all that.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I, it took a lot of episodes, lemme tell you. But, but we've been doing it a while. And if you say the same thing over and over, you could, you could memorize it, right? Right.

So anyway, so tell the audience who you are and what you do.

Trisha Perna: Well, I'm Trish Perna. I'm the current president of the Women's Club of Clayton, and I appreciate you having me on to, to tell people about the Women's Club.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, it was good. We met initially at a J Now awards reception a few weeks ago where the Clayton Women's Club is being, is the Women's Club Clayton or Clayton Women's Club?

Trisha Perna: It's the Woman's Club of Clayton. Okay. That's our legal. Legal name.

Jonathan Breeden: I'm gonna get it wrong. I'm sorry.

Trisha Perna: It's everybody does so right. As long as you, as long as you know where to bring.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. I got you. Yeah. Anyway where y'all are being recognized as one of the volunteer organizations of the year.

Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, it's great that what the, the JDAL magazine and and J down L Media and all they do to recognize, that's great because those awards recognize people that don't win awards like nonprofits.

Trisha Perna: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: I always sponsor the firefighter of the year. Teenager of the year.

Trisha Perna: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: Medical professional year. Like they just recognize people who, yeah. Police officer of the year, they don't get recognized. So I, I'm, I'm a big fan of that and always glad to sponsor it and

Trisha Perna: it's a good feel. Good.

Was happy to see your group win.

Jonathan Breeden: Good. Y'all had a great turnout for the, for the award. Yes. Thank you. You gave a nice speech up there. I know you're, remember what I said? I know you're not a big speech giver and all that stuff, but you know, it's not like you stand up front 250 people every day, right?

No. Right. No, I know. It's a lot.

Trisha Perna: 84 once a month. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: That's for sure. So anyway so I mean. I mean, tell me a little bit about you. I mean, how, you know, where'd you grow up, where'd you work, what brought you to Johnston County?

She's a private surgeon. We had the OR suite right there in the office. All the bells and whistles, 30 years of stories. So it was, I can't, yeah, I cannot imagine.

Jonathan Breeden: A plastic surgery practice in Las Vegas. I mean, the things you must have seen in the book, you could write, but we won't get into that on this podcast.

No, that's a

Trisha Perna: total nother kind of podcast.

Yes. They were brought to Fort Bragg and they decided to put down roots here. And you wanted to follow the grandkids.

Trisha Perna: Yes, that's exactly right. He is in the military, still in the military Special Forces. Now she's a realtor down in Fayetteville Hope Mill area. And, yeah, they told us they weren't coming back to the West coast, so we said, well then we gotta follow those little grand gems.

So that's what we did.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, well, hey, there's, there's nothing wrong with that. You're not the first person to move to Johnston County to follow grand kids.

Trisha Perna: A lot of people I meet here, a lot of kids do the same thing.

Jonathan Breeden: They do. They do. Yeah. Hey, look, it's a great place to live. I, I, you know, it is. The weather's nice.

Taxes are low. It's not too crowded. You know, whatever you need that we don't have in Johnston County is available in Raleigh. Yeah. So, it's a reason why the triangle is the number one place to live in America.

Trisha Perna: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: and a lot of people move here every single day.

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Trisha Perna: Actually, it was. Oh, it was Okay. Jonathan, actually it was all right. I, you know. Vegas busy working hard, working long hours, and then raising kids.

I never had time. Not that I didn't want to, but I'd give my, you know, give my few bucks as I passed their fundraiser on, on the sidewalk or whatever. But when we decided to move here my husband and I were talking and we decided that I wouldn't go back to work unless I ended up having to so I would be available for the Grand Gems.

So, and. But I get bored. I know me. So I said, well, you know, I think I wanna help give back to the community and figure out how to do some charity work. And I didn't really know. So when I first moved here, then I was looking online and I found the town of Clayton, and then that led me to downtown development.

Jonathan Breeden: I know Cheryl Champion.

Trisha Perna: Her and I were on the Okay. I like everybody knows Cheryl Champion

Jonathan Breeden: champion. Her, her and I were on the GCA board together for like six or seven years.

Yes. Okay. She was running volleyball. Yes. And she is a great person.

Trisha Perna: She's fantastic. She's awesome. Fantastic. So I, I got partnered with her so she could show me the ropes and that's, she started talking about the Woman's Club of Clayton and that's how I learned about it. So I went to a meeting and I liked it.

Went back to another meeting and I joined that day. So, and then through the last five years I just, I, you know, my turn to be president, so it's your turn to be president. My turn. I got you.

Jonathan Breeden: So, well, I think people need to understand. The Women's Club of Clayton is not a social club. It is a working club.

Trisha Perna: It is a working club.

We work hard, so we get a lot done.

Jonathan Breeden: yeah. I mean, I, I think you know, it's not just sit around and have tea and stuff. I mean, they're, they're out there doing stuff in the community all the time. Yeah. And have the whole 25 years I've lived in Johnston

So we've been around for a long time and we've always been a working club, help the town. However, in fact, mayor McLeod right now tells people, if you want something done, talk to the Women's Club of Clayton. So, so, and we're proud of that.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. There's, there's no doubt about that. Well, so the Women's Club of Clayton is, is part of a larger organization of, I guess, women's clubs international.

Trisha Perna: Yeah, so General Federation of Women's Clubs, it's an international organization, and so they are our, what we consider our bigger support, our larger support, and then that filters down into GFWC NC so that there's a state level and we're a member of the state level as well.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. And so what is the Mission of Women's Club Internationals and the Mission of the Women's Club of Clayton

So everything we do in the community, all of our projects, all of our fundraising money that goes out to the community and organizations all falls within one of those. And on the state level and the international level, it's the same. And then of course, for the international and federal I'll go with federal and state.

There's a lot of legislative stuff that they influenced.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and let's talk about some of the, the many projects that the Women's Club of Clayton does. They, you know, those of us have been around a long time. Remember some that have been done in the past that might be coming back.

Yeah. I remember the fashion show.

Trisha Perna: Mm-hmm.

Trisha Perna: just joined. Okay. I had just joined with the last one that they did and, and they said it was fantastic.

I didn't get to go, I was still learning the ropes. I didn't, it was already in the right, it had already been planned and all that by the time I joined. But anyway, so, but they said that was fantastic. So if we do get to do it in the spring, I'm gonna be excited 'cause it'll be my first one I get to experience, so.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Well that's great. I, I remember that. I remember. Community garden. They, they sort of started I know maybe you're not as involved with it as you were, but just talk about what it is, where it is and who's doing it now.

Trisha Perna: So it's the community garden on Main Street there in Clayton, in downtown Clayton, and it's owned by Thomas Lipscomb.

So it was, it was quite popular.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you. Y'all still doing that now? Or is somebody doing it?

Trisha Perna: They'd still decorate it for Christmas. It's not a big event that I'm aware of. The lady that was in charge of that in our club unfortunately passed away and it never got picked up really by anybody else. So we do we do still maintain a fairy garden.

That environment just built in there for little kids to come in and, and visit and play with. Right touch things.

Trisha Perna: Yes. It's on South Church Street. Okay. 1 0 9 South Church Street. It's right across from the library in Clayton.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. And right around sort of catty corner from Horn Horn United Methodist Church.

Trisha Perna: Yes. That's exactly where it's at. And,

Jonathan Breeden: and right down from the. New Town Hall, which was the old school.

Trisha Perna: Yes. Right. I just learned the story, the story about that the other day. Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. So, so it's, it's right there. Mm-hmm. And now they're gonna have this new, in the old town hall building, April Seas and them are gonna have these.

Popup shops type thing. These little vendor booth for small businesses. So that's gonna be opening here in the next couple months. That's gonna be exciting too. Mm-hmm. so I mean that, that's great. So, so I mean, I'm just remembering the other events. Let's talk about the events that are, that are going on now.

Trisha Perna: That's our big fundraiser for the year. So that's what allows us to be able to go out into the community and do what we do. And at these events, there's all restaurants, local restaurants come in and they set up and they're our food servers and we get together and you can judge the food. They get to win awards just like we did at J now.

So we have different awards that we give. Usually there's dancing, of course there's some wine involved. Music. We always have a dj, Mike, you've probably heard of Mike. He's fantastic and it's just a great way for. Everybody to get fancy dance seated up and, and come, come help the women's club, support the community.

So where is it

Jonathan Breeden: gonna be?

Trisha Perna: It's always at, so far it's always been at the farm at 42.

Jonathan Breeden: Farm. At 42? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Trisha Perna: Yeah.

Trisha Perna: were 80.

Jonathan Breeden: 80. Okay. I think

Trisha Perna: so.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright, I gotcha. Does that include beer and wine?

Trisha Perna: No, that's, it's, that's under the farm at 40 two's liquor license. So that's, that's separate. So that's cash I got, that's cash bar.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you. So how many restaurants come and take part in Taste of Carolina

Trisha Perna: between 10 and 12?

Jonathan Breeden: Oh man, that's great.

Trisha Perna: Oh, we have a great participant. The restaurants love it. So well, who

Jonathan Breeden: are some of the past participants?

Trisha Perna: Mannings Anthonys I'm gonna miss a bunch of people. I'm sorry.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. so, alright. So you don't remember exactly all the different ones, but we all know Anthony's LPIs.

We know Mannings it out in downtown Clayton. Yeah. They do a great job. Yeah. And I, I put on one of these. Taste of Carolina type events with the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce about 10 years ago, Uhhuh, and we had restaurants around the 40, 42 area and it was so much fun and it was so good. And Anthony was, was there.

Trisha Perna: Yeah, we had many great restaurants, the ones that I couldn't think of that came and did it for us.

Trisha Perna: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And that's your biggest fundraiser and you can raise it as much as it's,

Trisha Perna: we also have a silent auction there as well. So we last two years we've had big nutcrackers that we had donated to the silent auction.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's great.

Trisha Perna: Actually, another member of ours and my mom and her, her sweetie build 'em by hand and then. And so we put 'em into silent auction. People love them.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. And I mean, I mean, that event can raise, I mean, upwards of $30,000, I believe, right?

Trisha Perna: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: Yes. And so where does the money, the women's club raise, go to?

We also purchased four benches for the town of Clayton. They put one went to the greenway, one went, you know, they put 'em all over. And because there's extra seating, we're always hearing that people need extra seating around town. They have a lot of events downtown, so people need to be able to sit.

We also support Boys and Girls Club. We support House of Hope Harbor House. You know, a lot of organizations, we've partnered with One Compassion before to get stuff done. And we also support Her Haven of Light. Which I don't know if you've heard about them.

Jonathan Breeden: 70 or 80 kids.

Trisha Perna: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness. That is tremendous. The counselors

Trisha Perna: get ahold of us and give us lists and we all sign up and go out and get to shop and rap and,

Jonathan Breeden: well, I mean, it's, I I, I'm so happy to hear you list those organizations you support. We've had. The vast majority of them on this podcast

Trisha Perna: I've heard

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. And we had the Isaiah 117 house, which is gonna be a house for children coming into the foster care system to go and stay for a few hours up to 24 hours until they can be placed Yes. With a foster family that will be.

Toys. Yes. They'll be able to have a bath. They will be able to get shoes or whatever. They would like to have such a

Trisha Perna: wonderful, wonderful service. Tremendous organization building

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Yes. So there's a home in Clayton. It's a residential home for teenage girls who are having a tough time either through life circumstances maybe some mental health issues, maybe all types of things. Sometimes their family situation is falling apart through no fault of their own, and they bring kids in and that's been there probably. 15, 20 years now.

Trisha Perna: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And they, those kids live there. They go to school there, they get counseling, they get support they get loved, they get structure. They get three meals a day.

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Some of the kids coming there haven't had three meals in a day in a long time and they've done a tremendous job there.

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: I Played they, their golf tournament, they all that stuff.

Trisha Perna: Great. Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Harbor House, which is a domestic violence shelter.

Trisha Perna: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Here in Johnston County, they also offer domestic violence classes for free. If you happen to be in a relationship like that or know somebody that is, you can go to  harborshelter.org and you can get their information and they will help you.

All that stuff. We had a guest on, if you go back a couple weeks, we had Chandler Pernell on and he's been very involved with the Boys and Girls Club of Johns County as of High. And he told me something I did not know, which was that they've not had a kid not graduated high school that came through. The Boys and Girls gloves.

Your kid of Johnston County. I did not know. That's

fantastic. I didn't Oh my gosh. I'm Chand didn't have to share that with you. That's right. Chandler Pernell told me that. So with the women, so yeah, I'm gonna have to tell the ladies that.

That's fantastic. No, it's, it's awesome and I'm so glad. Y'all are supporting those groups that have for a long time.

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Jonathan Breeden: What are some other fundraisers? I guess the fashion show may come back. That's a fundraiser.

Trisha Perna: It might. So we do another fun one, which is called, "Murder Mystery Dinner". So like your regular old, like you play with your besties. Right. And, but that's really great because we use the performing arts. Teenagers to perform for us.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Trisha Perna: And so, And that's fantastic. That's a lot of fun of course mostly the parents are the ones showing up, so a lot of times, we'll even buy tickets to attend. The last two years, I had to sell my ticket back so that they could give,

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Trisha Perna: So, and that I believe, if this, if my dates are right is gonna be January 16th and 17th. If that's a Friday and a Saturday.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. Well that's awesome.

Trisha Perna: That's coming up.

Jonathan Breeden: That's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, while you are a working club, y'all do have member socials.

Trisha Perna: We do, we have a social once a year. Our next one is actually next Thursday, August 21st.

So if there's anybody out there who wants to come visit us and, and learn more and see what we do, you're more than welcome to. It's from six to seven 30. There's might be a little glass of wine involved in that as well.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that seems to be a theme here. Uh,

Trisha Perna: the Women's Club in Johnston County. A little bit of wine. Nobody joke about it all.

Jonathan Breeden: Anyway, I can under, I can understand that. Yeah. I mean the so when does it meet? Where does it meet?

Trisha Perna: We meet at the clubhouse.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: And so it doesn't meet in the summer.

Trisha Perna: We, we do not meet formally in the summer. The CSPs do their kickoff meetings in the summer. Our, our year goes from June through May.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Trisha Perna: So those first couple months when we're not meeting formally, they're doing their kickoff meetings, coming up with the projects they wanna do for that year.

Also, each CSP, they take turns in hosting the lunch at the clubhouse for the general meeting. So that's when they plan their program guest speaker. You know, menus their game plan for how they're gonna host. So, and they, they all do such a fantastic job decorating the clubhouse and just making it a really, really fun day for us to conduct our business, so.

Trisha Perna: I get it,

Jonathan Breeden: but that was always my thought.

Trisha Perna: I get it. I totally right. So stereotypical, but even when I was growing up, I was like, I'd watch those ladies walk outta that little building in my small town and be like, oh man, I wish I could be like them.

So anyway the only requirement is $85 a year. If you're gonna have lunch, we do have a night-time group if you want to join and you can't meet during the day. We have what we call Nightingales and those are also part of the Women's Club of Clayton membership. But I do those meetings over Zoom and they're the Mondays after the general meeting.

And it's just a way for me to be able to let them know what happened at the general meeting, what new things are coming up. All those things, but I just come to the social, come to a meeting. You can come to two free meetings before you have to make a decision whether you join or not. And just see what we're about.

Trisha Perna: Yes. Clayton, right? Clayton does have a Juniors club. Yes. Okay. What is that? Fantastic.

Jonathan Breeden: Who's in that?

Trisha Perna: So Tempest Templa is their president right now. She's fantastic. She's doing a great job with them. They are a little bit younger crowd there.

They meet at night, so you can be with them. I think you have until you're 35, I think 45 maybe. And then you need to roll over into us if you want to continue. But they do, they do the, the same thing that we do. So support the community and. Have a good time doing it

Jonathan Breeden: and help y'all with y'all's projects like Taste of Carolina and stuff.

Trisha Perna: They absolutely can't. Will. Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's great. That's great. And so you don't, you don't have to be rich and you don't have to be 70.

Trisha Perna: No. You just have to be willing, you have to be willing to, to wanna serve the community, you know, and there's a, there's a certain passion that needs to be there, but otherwise, that's it.

Bring your smile and let's get, let's get it done.

Jonathan Breeden: It be, it, it won't work. Right. It's not a social club, it's a working club, not a

Jonathan Breeden: I gotcha, I gotcha you. So, so I mean, how can people, I mean, I guess reach out to the women's club.

Trisha Perna: So we have a website that's twccnc.org. They're, we, they're welcome to do that. We're also on Facebook Woman's Club of Clayton. Know the, on the Facebook page, by the way. And yeah, so you can do that or reach out to me. I get emails all the time, so I'm, I'm happy to have people reach out to me as well.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, what are the I guess we got a couple more questions here. What are the most exciting I. What are you looking forward to? I mean, you, I mean, you're gonna be president here. Your, your term is just starting. We're recording this in the middle of August. This episode probably runs in October.

So as you move forward, your regular meeting started in September. I mean, what are you looking forward to? Yeah, we got Taste of Carolina coming up. We got murder mystery. Anything else? Anything different or unique, maybe the fashion show comes back, that you'd like to see the club do under your leadership?

And we're also gonna make a pad there with those engraved brick so that they have somewhere to walk 'cause right now it gets, you know, if it's rainy or you know, it gets a little muddy and slippery. And so we're gonna take care of that. So that's my project for this time. I would really like to get a mentoring. Program started, a formal mentoring program started so that new members can get caught up quickly on the process.

Jonathan Breeden: right.

Well, how many members do you have now?

Trisha Perna: Last count was 84.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's a pretty good group.

Trisha Perna: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Do most of them come to most of the meetings?

Trisha Perna: We get the, the majority coming. That's awesome. Yes. Don't, don't tell the fire department that, just, just paper over capacity. I'm not

Jonathan Breeden: sure. Well, and I, before we get, we get, we in this, like you can rent the building, community groups can rent the building.

Yes. I, I I've been to events there. Mm-hmm. What's involved with that?

Trisha Perna: Yeah. So you can get on the website, the applications there. The clubhouse rules are there contact information? Is there? Capacity for that is 60. But we've had, we have a lot of bridal showers there. We have a lot of baby showers there.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's great. That's great. Well, the last question we last ask everybody on this podcast, you've been here for five and a half years now. What do you love most about Johnston County?

Trisha Perna: I'm gonna, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but I'm gonna say it. It's the people. It's the people.

It's the,

Jonathan Breeden: it's always the people.

Trisha Perna: It's the people. It's you know, I could not have landed anywhere with nicer people and I just instantly fell in love, so.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, we'd like to thank Trish for coming on and being our guest on this week's episode of The Best of Johnston County podcast and educating all of us on the Women's Club of Clayton and all of their involved.

The Best of Johnston County Podcast, if you'd be so kind, is to tag us in your Instagram stories. Best of Johnston County. That would help us grow our reach, and if you would give us a five star review down below, that would also reach, help us reach more people and let them know why Johnston County is the best county and why this podcast is for anybody that loves Johnston County.

Until next time, I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.