“Cool Girls means a lot to me. It’s a place where you can express your feelings and have fun. It’s also a place where you can talk about things that are on your mind. Cool Girls is where I can come and feel comfortable.” -Briandra, 7th Grade Cool Girl
On Saturday, May 15th more than 200 partners, volunteers and friends of Cool Girls gathered at “Cool Girls Become Cool Women” – Cool Girls annual Hot Pink Party celebration and fundraiser.
Amid the music, hot pink decorations and fun of the Hot Pink Party, an important challenge was given to each guest by our Woman of the Year, Danita Knight- Cool Girls cannot contribute to the growth and empowerment of young metro-Atlanta girls without financial support. It is short and to the point, but it must be heard. During these economic times, Cool Girls needs its supporters now more than ever.
Erica Turner Gibson, one of our original Cool Girls, shared her experience with Cool Girls to the party-goers and personalized what it means to empower a young girl. Erica is the epitome of our mission to empower girls. Growing up in the tough East Lake Meadows area, Erica was never encouraged to do anything with her life. Cool Girls was formed and it became a safe haven to escape the violence that surrounded her and eight other girls who formed the first group of Cool Girls. Through afterschool tutoring and field trips to such places as Gullah Island, Erica was able to see the world outside of East Lake Meadows. This eye-opening time was solidified with the matching of Erica with her Cool Sister, Joan Thomas. Joan not only took Erica to the beach for the first time but she insisted on having Erica transfer to a school that was more academically-challenging when she began to act out in class. Erica, the first in her family to go to college, now holds an MBA and is a senior application developer for Ingenix. She is a wife, a mother and a homeowner. Cool Girls allowed her to believe that she could be something ‘more’ and she attributes her success to the support she received from Cool Girls.
We support 500 girls who are hoping to achieve the same success that Erica has. While we raised over $100,000 during our Cool Girls Become Cool Women Hot Pink Party fundraiser, we are still short of our fiscal year-end amount needed to continue to empower girls like Erica. We must build on the momentum of the successful Hot Pink Party and we are doing so by establishing our new Empower a Cool Girl Campaign!
Today we are asking each of you to reflect on Erica’s Cool Girls success and take the challenge presented by Danita Knight to donate to Cool Girls.
$1600 provides a girl with Cool Girls programming for one year, all of which the girls receive free of charge. Take the challenge. Empower a Cool Girl.