Saturday, October 16, 1999
Women can change lives of young girls
BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Let's admit it. We're all matchmakers at heart. Who among us has not known the instinctive feeling that if Party No. 1 met Party No. 2, something wonderful and life-changing would happen?
These unions need not be limited to romantic engagements. The two parties I personally would like to zap together happen to be women and girls.
There is a gap between these two groups, as unnatural as it seems. Women get busy when they reach adulthood and forget to look back. If they did, they would see a group of young females fighting — just as they themselves did — to be heard in the world, to find their own path, to believe in themselves.
Girls take quite nicely to role-modeling. Although they are less likely than boys to be groomed and mentored, if you put them close enough to powerful, successful women, that is precisely what they'll become.
Which is why, on a recent afternoon, I found myself deep in the interior of Hoffman Elementary School in Evanston, surrounded by a table full of bright, articulate and strongly opinionated fifth-grade girls.
Collectively, they are known as the Hoffman Fun Girls Club.
Girls run this show
They meet every week for projects, games and field trips, led by a group of women whose names and accomplishments are well known across the city. The group includes former teachers, a social worker, an attorney and serious civic volunteers. Its co-chairs are Susan Pfau and Kathy Christmon.
In my opinion, the club is brilliant, powerful and undeniably fun.
I ask my table: What would you be doing if you didn't have the girls' club? Washing dishes, being bored, vacuuming the living room, just being at home by myself, the girls answer.
Nathisha Varner, 10, catches my eye and sets me straight. “Girls don't really have anything to do,” she says. “Boys have football, baseball, basketball.”
Thus began the girls' club.
Since last year, when the project began, club members have taken trips to the Cincinnati Art Museum, Sturkey's restaurant in Wyoming, and City Hall, where they got their picture taken with the female vice mayor.
They make decisions about where to go. They raise some of their own money. They set rules for the club. They are learning skills that will come in handy later in life, such as how to function in a group, run meetings, be a strong woman and leader.
Meanwhile, I ask them, what does it take to be a strong girl? Courage, says Aramis Johnson. Confidence, says Kiara Freeman. Compliments, says Quianna Thompson.
Compliments?
Quianna nods decisively. “It helps our self-esteem,” she says, looking at the women hovering at the edges of the table. “It's like a lot of people here make you feel smart.”
That every girl should have a place like this.
"Soak in everything'
Girls' clubs could happen anywhere, and they should. This one started as an offshoot of the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative. The women who lead it have erratic schedules that don't allow for one-on-one mentoring. So they decided, as a flock, to take a group of girls under their wings.
“What an opportunity these girls have,” says Sandra Freeman, mother of club member Kiara Freeman. “These women didn't have to do this. They may be way up here, but they come down here to give back. When I heard Kiara would be around this kind of women — professional women — I told her to soak in everything.”
And beautiful, bright-eyed Kiara is doing just that. “The girls club makes me feel happy and makes me feel cared for,” she says with a huge grin. “I feel loved because I have friends here.”
She gestures toward the girls at the table, and at the women behind them. “And all of these people are my friends.”
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202, or e-mail her at krista_ramsey@hotmail.com.
