Sponsoring Girls going to School
Student organization She’s the First is sponsoring five girls to go school.
She’s the First at Temple University is a chapter of the She’s the First global organization.
The global organization aims to provide scholarships to high-potential girls with financial need in order to allow them to graduate. The money raised by college campus chapters covers tuition, school materials, and uniforms so that the girls are able to attend school.
Each campus chapter is assigned a number of girls to sponsor each year. When a chapter receives the assignments, it also is given a picture of each girl as well as some background information such as where she lives, her hobbies, and her favorite school subjects.
Sydney Schultz, a sophomore at Temple, is the secretary of Temple’s She’s The First chapter. She says the group is in contact with the girls throughout the year in order to show them support.
“We are able to write them letters to let them know that they are being supported in Pennsylvania,” Schultz said.
Madison Gray, the president of she’s the first, says that receiving letters from the girls is the most rewarding part about being involved with She’s the First. “My favorite thing about She’s the First is getting the letters from scholars. Putting a face and a name to all our hard work is so rewarding and it never fails to make me tear up,” Gray said.
Temple University’s chapter is only two years old, but its fundraising success last year has allowed them to sponsor five girls this year instead of the previous year’s one.
The organization owes their success to a variety of fundraising events such as outdoors yoga classes and bake sales. A popular fundraising event is ‘Cheese the First’.
“We’ll go out on Friday night to a corner on campus and we’ll make quesadillas and sell them. Just on one night alone we raised around $140,” Schultz said. “A lot of times we get together with other feminist organizations like FMLA [Feminist Majority and Leadership Alliance] to fundraise.”
Temple’s chapter will continue to raise money for their five scholars through their bake sales while also planning awareness events.
Written by Yanuara Ramirez
