Brittany Wolverton and Shea Daniels (right), cofounders of Future Women of Appalachia, attend the 2011 Leadership Gala at Ohio University.

Mentoring Appalachia’s Future Women Leaders
By Shea Daniels, cofounder of Future Women of Appalachia and senior at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio

Editor’s note: In this issue of On Campus with Women that focuses on higher education’s role in engaging with questions of gender justice on a global scale, we turn in our Global Perspective column to an effort to create gender equity in a region within the United States: Appalachian Ohio.

Brittany Wolverton and I created Future Women of Appalachia (FWA) as first-year students at Ohio University (OU) in Athens, Ohio. Toward the end of our sophomore year, FWA became an official student organization with the mission of empowering children, especially girls, in Appalachian Ohio. The region has historically struggled with high levels of poverty as well as related challenges like low literacy levels and high levels of food insecurity. Brittany and I both grew up in Ohio’s Appalachia, and we are well acquainted with the challenges people, and particularly women, face there. When our adviser through the university’s Appalachian Scholarship program assigned us the task of creating an organization that would address an issue in Appalachia, we knew we wanted to mentor middle school students. Because our group was comprised of women, we decided to focus our mentoring program on teenage girls. We believe that women have the power to revitalize Appalachia, meaning that the girls with whom we work are the future leaders who will shape their communities.     

Being a teenage girl is generally difficult, but being a teenage girl in Appalachia can be even more so. Education, arguably the surest way to create a better life for oneself, isn’t always a priority. According to a 2009 study from Ohio University, although 80 percent of high school seniors in Appalachian Ohio want to attend college, only 75 percent of first-generation students (compared with 89 percent of their peers whose parents have college experience) plan to enroll immediately after high school. Thus teenagers whose parents have not attended college are less likely to pursue higher education. The same is true of teenagers who are struggling on a daily basis, like many of the girls with whom FWA works. When we first meet them, very few of the girls with whom we work have thought about pursuing higher education. Sometimes these girls express fear of homelessness or hunger, and sometimes the realities of their situations are stark. School is very important to them, to be sure, but survival comes first; and because survival comes first, education sometimes comes second or even third. For girls who have trouble fitting in or making friends, school can be an even bigger challenge. Sometimes girls go home to dysfunction, and sometimes they go home to instability. Generally, girls in Appalachian Ohio lack access to opportunities that girls elsewhere might have.

FWA’s goal is thus to provide a positive mentorship experience for Appalachian girls. As part of our mentorship program, we work to provide mentees with experiences they might not otherwise encounter. We collaborate with an organization at nearby Trimble Middle School called Girl Power, whose mission is very similar to ours. Trimble Local Schools is the poorest district in the state, and Girl Power works with some of the most “at-risk” girls in grades 5–8, many of whom are enrolled in the program through foster care or child protective services. Girl Power meets once a week for fun activities that teach life skills and promote self-esteem. FWA has partnered with Girl Power to create some of these activities and to develop mentoring relationships between girls and college students. Our initial goal was to pair each girl with a mentor, but when more girls than mentors signed up, we began using an informal approach so we wouldn’t have to turn anyone away. Girls are free to choose a particular mentor, but they often build relationships with multiple FWA members.

Combining Education and Fun

Once each academic quarter, FWA members visit Girl Power at Trimble Middle School in Jacksonville, Ohio, about a twenty-minute drive from campus. We host a variety of fun events in collaboration with the program. We have made friendship bracelets, hosted a talent show, and distributed formal dresses that we spent several months collecting. Many of the girls couldn’t believe the dresses were theirs to keep and were excited to learn that we had planned a Spring Formal for them to showcase their new styles. Of course, as a group of college students, we always have an event planning budget of zero, but we work around that. We have very supportive local and university communities and are able to reserve space at Ohio University for free.

The events we plan with Girl Power are fun, but they also impart meaningful life skills. For example, our Spring Formal included an etiquette dinner hosted by an OU fraternity, so the girls practiced their formal dining skills while being served by waiters dressed in suits as musicians played in the background. Before dinner, girls participated in a fashion show with mentors to foster their self-esteem, and after dinner they spent time at an “after party” in the OU Women’s Center, where they received goody bags stuffed with useful donated items: lip gloss, toiletries, a purse, and more. While the event was not extravagant—we used paper plates and borrowed Christmas lights for decorations—the Girl Power girls had a blast and learned something in the process.

Most of our events aren’t as elaborate as our Spring Formal, but all are fun. As grant money allows, we visit a local state park each fall. We also work to bring the girls to campus once each ten-week quarter to help them develop a level of comfort with a college setting. During the 2010–11 winter quarter, we attended a women’s basketball game where OU’s mascot posed for pictures with our mentees. Each spring Girl Power holds a lock-in where the girls participate in a variety of activities, including yoga and art. This year FWA hosted a goal-setting workshop at that event. With a quick trip to the hardware store and some craft supplies, we built the rigging for a crystal ball, hung black paper to create a dark room, and added sticky glow-in-the-dark stars for ambiance. Girls entered our Fortune Telling Room one at a time, eager to hear their fortunes. Instead, they met FWA members who asked what they want to be when they grow up and gave them plenty of encouragement to follow their dreams.

Between face-to-face meetings with our mentees, we correspond with them by mail. This creates a steady stream of communication and is also a way to help the girls work on their writing skills. Knowing how to navigate the US Postal Service is a valuable life skill, and we work with mentees if they don’t know how to address an envelope. We also model proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Girls pick the topics for our correspondence, so sometimes we write letters about the latest pop culture craze and sometimes we write about more serious things. Some girls write no letters, but others write to multiple FWA members several times a month. With each letter we send, we include a self-addressed stamped envelope so there is no financial strain on mentees or their families.   

Realizing Promising Outcomes

During the time FWA has worked with Girl Power, we’ve seen many positive changes in our mentees. They have begun to trust us. Their self-esteem has increased. Some who didn’t regularly attend Girl Power meetings now attend so they will gain the privilege of traveling to FWA events. FWA members have also gained useful skills. Brittany and I, for example, have received a number of awards for our leadership on campus and in the community, as well as valuable experience in community organizing, communication, event planning, and advocacy. We also work to spread awareness about Appalachia beyond the mentorship program, hanging hundreds of posters around campus each quarter and talking to student groups and departments. Sometimes we even create massive chalk murals with statistics about hunger or illiteracy.

We didn’t start FWA because we knew it would be a success or because we had the money or time to devote to it (in fact, money and time are the biggest challenges FWA faces). Instead, Brittany and I began FWA because we saw a very real need in our community that we wanted to address, and we continued FWA because others wanted to address it as well. This year we are welcoming new leadership, having reached an active membership of approximately ten OU students who work with almost two dozen mentees. FWA will persist because of the impact it has on our mentees, and because of the impact our mentees have on us.

Reference

Ohio University. 2009. Access and Success: Appalachian Ohio Executive Summary. Athens, OH: Ohio University. http://www.oache.org/downloads/Executive%20Summary%20%282009%29-981891860-1.pdf.