When Kelly Fair started the Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program in 2009, it was to give young women and girls from the city of Chicago the opportunity to see what’s possible when someone believes in you and invests in your future.
Now, 15 years and over 5000 girls served later; she says she can show the girls in her life skills and career readiness-focused organization that when you show up and stay consistent, being recognized and working with greats like Former First Lady Michelle Obama can be the norm.
On Tuesday, Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program was one of 14 Chicago-based girls-serving organizations named by the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance, founded by Mrs. Obama, to receive $500K in funding. The selected Chicago-based organizations support girls’ lives in various ways, including through mentorship and leadership development, sports and dance programs, and work-study programs.
“For Michelle Obama to make such a commitment to us, it says that ‘I’m invested in our girls here in Chicago’; therefore, I’m also invested in the leaders of the organizations and the growth of the organizations. That’s powerful.” Fair shared with ESSENCE.
“Now, we’re normalizing for our girls that when you participate in programs like this, you build sisterhood, you build skills, you get opportunities to build a future, and now you’re rubbing shoulders with a reflection of who you really are. It can’t get any better than seeing a reflection of you through the former First Lady Michelle Obama,” she added.
The Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund will support Polished Pebbles’ Every Girl is a CEO (EGCEO) Summer Work-Study program with $50,000 in funding. EGCEO is a six-week professional development program that combines workshops and hands-on training to prepare girls for success in the workplace. The program has employed over 400 girls to date.
Overall, about 1,800 adolescent girls in Chicago will benefit from the funds given to these local organizations, most of which were founded by Black women and aim to empower them.
With a vision laid out by Mrs. Obama, the Girls Opportunity Alliance will support programs that will reach girls in the South and West Sides of Chicago particularly in Woodlawn, South Shore, and Washington Park, which are neighborhoods surrounding the future home of the Obama Presidential Center.
“Chicago is the place that made me who I am. It’s the place that shaped me, developed my self-confidence, and helped me discover my voice. There’s an energy to this city that’s like no other— an energy that lifts, inspires and nurtures,” said Mrs. Obama in a video announcing the big news and major investment in grassroots organizations from her hometown.
“That’s why I couldn’t be more thrilled to share that the Girls Opportunity Alliance is expanding our work right here in my favorite city,” Mrs. Obama continued.
In addition to funding, these organizations and their leaders will receive programming support, Obama Foundation programming, and in-person convening featuring Mrs. Obama and former President Obama.
“It’s been life-changing and I would say one thing I am really proud of is that they [The Obama Foundation} started a network to bring together leaders, leaders that are supporting girls across the city, which is meaningful,” said Shatina M. Edwards, founder of Manage-Emotions-Avoid-Negativity Girls Empowerment, or M.E.A.N.
“The Girls Opportunity Alliance has done a great job of amplifying that the girls we serve here in Chicago matter. They have dreams, their dreams matter, their hopes matter.”
The organization aims to prevent bullying and empower young ladies to avoid negativity, build self-confidence, and pursue their goals. The Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund will support the organization’s Girls Health Matters Initiative with $50,000 in funding. Edwards says the funds will be used to repurpose a transit van that will be used as a mobile health clinic for community outreach. They will offer health assessments, health boxes, nutrition, mental health, and reproductive health workshops.
“Our goal is to distribute over 700 health boxes to girls within our community this year. So, we will host pop-up assemblies at different schools throughout Chicago. And we will also host events at local community centers and churches. We have several girls that travel more than 30 miles to attend our programs, so this mobile resource van will allow us to take our programs and events to their communities, which is so big,” Edwards shared. “It is a game changer.”
“The Girls Opportunity Alliance has helped to provide that connective tissue to bring us together,” Edwards added.
Kelly Fair agrees, noting that not only has the alliance helped amplify their work, but it has filled in the gaps that can sometimes exist for promising girls from often underserved communities.
“Before we can get to talking about helping these girls become a part of the change makers that close all these other gaps, we gotta close the hope gap because they’ve got dreams, but if they’re uninvested in and nobody’s paying attention to them, our girls become quite hopeless,” she said. “The Girls Opportunity Alliance has done a great job of amplifying that the girls we serve here in Chicago matter. They have dreams, their dreams matter, their hopes matter.”