The University of West Florida’s AAUW Campus Action Project (CAP) team was thrilled to receive a 2008–09 CAP grant, and we are glad to say our project is in full swing!
With the AAUW CAP grant, a team of 25 dedicated students and faculty/staff will be welcoming 200 eighth-grade girls from the surrounding communities onto our beautiful campus in Pensacola, Florida, for a day of motivational speaking, games, and fun. This year, we are focusing our efforts on the foster child system in Northwest Florida, and many attendees will be foster children or from low-income households.
Upon arrival at the seminar on Friday, April 17, the girls will receive a gift bag that includes a t-shirt, name tag, program/journal, university swag, and other goodies. From there, they will be divided into smaller groups (all from varying schools to ensure that the girls will be able to mingle and make new friends) and will be separated into different classrooms. Our girls will be exposed to 30-minute presentations that cover many topics, including personal development, STEM opportunities, and body image. The workshops will be presented by university professionals, and younger college students will facilitate reflection discussions among the participants after each presentation.
Since we began planning our project last October, we have managed to keep the same theme and focus, despite evolutions in the event itself due to obstacles like school board regulations and transportation limitations. Having overcome our obstacles, we are pleased to see our ideas exchanged over a conference call in a board room morph over these last few months into a seminar that we believe will play a pivotal part in the attending girls’ lives. Our hope is that the seminar can be replicated by future CAP teams and students everywhere who want to make a difference in the lives of girls in their communities.
Wish us luck this week!
This post was written by Diana Doyle, a student CAP team member at the University of West Florida. She will write a follow-up blog entry after their event on April 17. You can learn more about her project and the ten other CAP team projects during the workshop sessions at the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders in June.
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