InfluenceHer Summit Success!
It’s all for the girls! And that’s why Boys and Girls Clubs of King County started the InfluenceHer initiative about a year ago — to bring intentional programs to girls at their clubs.
Once again, women jump into help. For a lot of women in the business world, we often read how women don’t help other women, or don’t mentor other women, or look at other women as ‘competition’ and not their ‘networks.’ That’s not the case here. We had about 125 influential women at the InfluenceHer summit, brainstorming ideas on how to help girls and teenagers, so they can go on to make good choices and learn about opportunities they might not have otherwise have. Justice Bobbe Bridge shared about the people who influenced her life, and Kimberly McKenna did a wonderful job of facilitating our day! Jann Blackbourn was our summit chair — hats off to a great job, as well as the Broadmoor Golf Club which does a beautiful job for us.
People who ‘get it.’ Started with an idea from BGCKC CEO Daniel Johnson and the Director of Development Mary Hackett, about a dozen women (of whom I have the honor of being a part) have worked for the past year to bring about a lot of the ideas ‘brainstormed’ at last year’s summit. Women are now sponsoring full college scholarships for girls, Lionfish and Gloria Wildeman are jumping in to produce the videos, websites, materials to bring the vision to life in materials (all pro bono I should add), Girl Scouts is offering their camp for a week this summer for 108 girls, many who’ve never left their neighborhoods, and some women are sponsoring the girls so they can attend the camp. SMART girls programming has been expanded to all the clubs. And that’s just the beginning.
Still a lot to do. While we’ve made great progress in a year, there’s a lot to do. And that’s where you come in! InfluenceHer wants your ideas, your willingness to r
oll up your sleeves and do the work, and the donations to help bring these ideas to life. It’s truly making the difference in the lives of girls in King County and you can be part of it. Just visit http://www.positiveplace.org/InfluenceHer/get_involved.html and you can see the teams we’ve formed. If you have an area of interest and would like to share, or become involved with a dynamic group of women, we’d love to hear from you!
Margo Myers, Principal, Margo Myers Communications
