Olivia went to Girls Inc. Summer Adventure Camp the last two years. She lives in a Madison suburb and has been a member of Girls Inc. for several years. Her mom, Leslie, said, "Girls Inc. has given her permission to speak up for herself. And now she knows she's just as capable as any other person."
She added, "My three daughters are all in Girls Inc. It's been the perfect antidote to all the pressures girls feel through social media and our cultural expectations of Girls."
In Olivia's words:
Girls Inc. makes me STRONG
"I learned I'm strong and can do way more than I thought when we canoed to Lake Farm County Park. It was super far and it was really long. It took all day. We were really tired, and we wanted to quit. But we didn't.
"And, I won the logrolling competition! It was hard, but I stayed up for 10 seconds!"
Girls Inc. makes me SMART
"Adventure camp was really fun and we learned a lot of fun things. I learned how to kayak, to use a compass, to cook and clean up using a camp stove, and what to do if our canoes tipped over. We learned to work together and they always showed us how to do stuff safely."
Girls Inc. makes me BOLD
"I think even from a young age, Girls Inc. made me more confident. In a lot of the world, girls are seen as weak. It made me proud of being a woman.
"And recently, I spoke up. I have a gym teacher who was not treating girls fairly. When we picked teams, he'd have the boys choose boys for their teams one by one, and then he'd just randomly send half the girls to each of the teams. It as like we were just filler. Like we weren't bringing anything to our teams. So, when I got an assignment to write a letter to someone about something that I care about, I wrote to our school board and told them about this injustice."
Your Gift to Girls Inc. Can Go Twice as Far
A couple in our local community, whose daughter Lucy passed away recently, will match gifts up to $24,000 through the end of March 2023.