Soroptimists choose Yost as Ruby Award winner
Soroptimist International of Butler County has chosen Audray Muscatello Yost of Butler as its 2022 Community Ruby Award winner. She will be honored at the Soroptimists’ Spring Fling fundraising event April 2 at the Butler Country Club.
“We are incredibly pleased to be presenting this award to Audray,” said Becky Plymale, the Soroptimists’ award chairwoman.
“I was really shocked when Becky came to my house and brought me flowers. I was shocked. It was a honor. I was definitely not expected it,“ said Yost of the day she learned she was the recipient of the award.
Plymale said the Ruby Award honors non-Soroptimist women who are making extraordinary efforts on behalf of other women. The award is an opportunity for the club to say “thank you” and encourage others to explore ways to assist women.
Plymale said the 20 members of the 70-year-old club voted on the award. She added Yost “has been very involved in the community with multiple organizations. She’s been in a lot and still is.”
That’s evident in the roll call of groups that can call Yost a member.
Yost is very active throughout the Butler community. She currently serves on five boards: The Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation; the YWCA Butler; Friends of Preston Park, where she is president; the General Federation of Women’s Clubs Intermediate League where she is co-chairing the education committee; and the Butler County Humane Society board, to which she was recently elected.
Yost is also active with the Butler Area School District’s Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program. She is one of the team leaders and volunteers countless hours to ordering, securing and packing food for children, who have food insecurity, for the weekends or on breaks from school.
Yost, who retired as a teacher with the Butler district in 2012 after 23 years, said. “Well, when I’ m not teaching I have a lot more time. I taught math, so it took a lot of time grading papers and working with the students.
“I love everything that I do. I feel pretty passionate about all these boards and what they stand for,” she said. “"I love working with children and even though I’m retired I feel I can help by working and going into the schools and helping feeding children who are food insecure.”
Yost has been part of the backpack program for eight years, which feeds children in need in kindergarten through fourth grade.
“I do all the ordering for the eight schools and do inventory and then I pack backs for three of the eight buildings. Next year we will be adding fifth grade,” she said, adding none of the backpack programs could have been possible without the many helpers, often retired teachers, who have pitched in.
With the Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation, she serves as a board member and past president. She is the project planner for the Tough Tornado Run and the Fab Showcase.
The Tough Tornado Run, staged the first Saturday in October in Alameda Park, is a combination of a 2-mile run and obstacle course. Proceeds go to the backpack program, teaching grants and meeting other educational needs of school district students.
Yost said she saw a similar event in Rhode Island and brought pictures home.
“We decided to give it a try and it was very successful,” she said. “It’s very family friendly. A good majority of those who participate are families. There’s a mud run, a color run, a foam run. The kids absolutely love it.”
Since 2012, she has served on the Butler Health System’s Crystal Ball and Ladies Night Out committee and the Butler humane society’s Fur Ball committee. She also helps with the Jean B. Purvis Community Health Center’s Signature Sensation and the Alliance for Children’s barbecue and bowling events.
The humane society probably should thank Yost’s two rescue dogs, a poodle named Harper and a Maltese named Maddie, for Yost’s services.
“I helped with fundraising for the Fur Ball since 2012 and then just got on the board. I have two rescue dogs that I absolutely love, and I just wanted to help. I think getting on their board was the way to do that,” she said.
She is married to Dr. Tom Yost, an ear nose and throat surgeon, and is the mother of three children, two bonus children and seven grandchildren.
Doors for the Soroptomist Spring Fling fundraising event will open at 10 a.m. with lunch being served at noon. Presale tickets are required and are available through March 24 by replying to the group’s Facebook page SIButlerCounty. Tickets are also available by calling Marianne Hill at 724-321-1309 or Susan Levis at 724-822-7945. The cost for the afternoon is $40. The event will include a 50/50 and a basket raffle.
The celebration will also include the recognition of the Soroptimist Live Your Dream scholarship award winners for 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well as the club’s Ruby award winner.
