We are delighted to welcome Ann Arbor-based nonprofit Girls Group as a creative partner on our Community Mural project. Girls Group is a youth development agency focused on building a college and career mindset for young women through mentoring and peer-to-peer activities. Community service is a core value of the organization’s, and members will take turns painting the mural and running their own program of children’s activities during the three painting days.
Why Girls Group?
The mission of Girls Group is to empower young women to achieve emotional and economic self-sufficiency by ensuring they graduate from high school and begin their college or career journeys. Their goal is that each young woman finds her voice, defines her dreams and ambitions, and moves forward in the world with pride and self-confidence. Jennifer Brents is the Manager of Participant Engagement.
Originally from Detroit, Jennifer attended EMU for accounting but was so inspired by her experiences mentoring with the Girl Scouts and through EMU that she switched her major to social work. She was looking for opportunities in case management when an internship opened up at Girls Group. “It was like they chose me!” she laughs. “You end up where you are supposed to be.” She’s now in her fourth year with the organization.
Who does Girls Group serve?
Jennifer feels it is especially important to mentor girls because women’s perspectives have been largely unheard and undervalued. “It is time for us to own our power and our voice to dream whatever we can imagine and know we have what it takes,” she affirms. Girls Group works with Ann Arbor Public Schools and select Ypsilanti high schools to find candidates for the program. Eighty nine percent of participants identify as persons of color, while 51.2% of AAPS students identify as white. Mentors address racial as well as gender stereotypes and prejudices, and the organization makes sure that the diversity of the girls in the program is reflected in the programming staff, interns, and management team. Jennifer hopes that will inspire girls to wonder, “How did they overcome barriers to success so that we can do the same?
What else do they do?
Girls Group continues to offer career counseling and workshops to program participants long after they graduate from high school. Many Girls Group graduates return as mentors or to give presentations about their careers. The values and aspirations of Girls Group align powerfully with those of Friends In Deed, particularly the Circles program.
The mural project marks the beginning of what our organizations hope will be a long and fruitful partnership, where the families of students participating in Girls Group become involved in FID programs and volunteer opportunities, and FID refers girls in the families we work with to Girls Group. “I’m glad that this partnership happened,” says Jennifer, “because you do so much good and we are trying to inspire people to think, ‘What can we do to help out a little bit?’”