A few reasons, one being just in the educational realm and seeing some of the challenges our girls were facing. We saw a lot of our girls just having these unnecessary, what I believe to be unnecessary, like ‘beefs,’ [are] what they like to call it, with each other. And it’s like, ‘Well, how can we create this space where we can bring girls together in unity,’ and I truly believe that before you can connect with someone else you have to learn how to love yourself first.

The whole idea with PEARLS was this space where we taught girls and nurtured them and brought out the talents and skills that we know that they have so they connect with themselves more. Then it’s more comfortable to connect with another girl because you’re secure in yourself, you’re confident in yourself and so now you’re learning how to navigate different challenges, situations, or you’re learning how to show up and love other girls as well.

The other thing was to create a space where we change the narrative of girls, specifically girls of color in the inner-city of Cleveland. And we know there’s a lot of labels placed on our girls… and we want to combat that because that’s not what we see as providers. We see our girls as talented, beautiful, and intelligent. We know that environment plays a huge role in their confidence and how they’re able to show up. There are so many different layers but we wanted to have this space where we kind of like partner with the girls and again, bridging that gap so that they know they are supported and they’re also challenging society’s thoughts.

It was extremely smooth – smoother than what I anticipated because when we first started it was right before COVID. We launched it March 8, 2020. We had partnered with a school, we already had a cohort of girls we were working with in Franklin D. Roosevelt School in Cleveland. The very next week everything shut down but just because we already had the connection with the young ladies, we were able to still engage with them and they still wanted to move forward.

We had to step outside of the box and get a little creative on how we could provide the service and just having conversations too with them as far as mentorship and wanting to learn more about leadership development and things like that. We had put out a survey to that cohort of girls and one hundred percent of them wanted to have a mentor and wanted to do some additional activities to learn about leadership skills. [PEARLS] kind of turned into a community-based organization as opposed to just a program. We just went out, we connected with different organizations and different spaces that would allow us to do programming outside or in spaces with the COVID space requirements and things like that. And, it just kind of grew from there and we’re still continuing to do school-based programming and community-based events.

Balance is extremely important to me. I know sometimes we don’t get it right all the time. I love being in solitude, taking solo trips, making sure I’m intentional about taking time for myself. I just incorporated this year for Sundays I don’t do anything. Even if you text me about PEARLS, I’m not responding because Sundays are my days where I get to just disconnect and just spend time with myself. I love nature walks, just taking advantage of things that are free. Sometimes I think we think of balance and doing things for ourselves. We think of money and trips and all of this stuff which is great but just connecting with things that are right in front of us – taking time to journal, or going outside to walk, connecting with family and friends, just making sure you’re intentional about that because you’re not able to pour into people if you’re not really pouring into yourself.

I know we say that a lot – you can’t pour into an empty cup. So, whatever a balance looks like to you or to the individual, I say to make sure to create that because it’s going to be important. Especially in the field where you’re helping other people.

I’m an empath so I’m taking in other people’s emotions all the time but as a social worker, I’ve kind of learned to create this barrier where I’m not taking it home with me.

I’d say relationships are important and sincerity. Kids can definitely pick up if you’re genuine and when you’re coming from a good space. We do not force any young person to join our program. Even when the principal is like – they might identify and feel like ‘We feel this girl can benefit.’ I like to put it back on them and say, ‘If you’d like to be in this space you’re more than welcome’.

We do not want any girl to feel like they’re here against their will. I would say just making sure it’s something that’s on your heart. Try not to go in like a fixer but more so a partner because they can pick up on whether you’re here to try to fix their problems. They don’t need that. They need presence and consistency and support. I would say as long as it’s coming from the heart it should be easier and if you’re consistent, not just with your relationships with the girls, but also with the community, because we get a lot of support from the community as well.

We have really good relationships with the schools that we’re in as well. And I think just with our partners here and seeing the work and trusting PEARLS, it makes it a lot easier for us to provide the service.

Girls will typically sign up through the school and we work with the schools and leadership in the schools to identify what girls they feel could benefit from the girls group being in the school. As far as the community, we invite girls from wherever to come to our events. So, you don’t necessarily have to apply and sign up to be a part of PEARLS as it relates to our community. The schools are a little bit different but we like to extend it so that girls feel like they have this place to come and connect with each other too.

Volunteers typically go through our website or through our events, or through social media. We’ll just promote different events and invite people to come and help us if they are interested and willing. They can come one time or they can be a continual volunteer. And we do have volunteers that work in our closet spaces, our flagship space, and then different community events. We also try to put different facilitators in different schools as well. We’re looking to do more of that next school year – put people in positions in the schools and kind of take the load off of me too. And just allow women the opportunity to pour back into the girls as well.

We always take hygiene items. Hygiene items are the ongoing need. We have three of these [closets] inside of three schools and then we have our flagship space in which we just moved into the Malachi Center on  Superior Viaduct. Clothing is not too much of a challenge, typically we ask donors to bring the minimum amount of up to two bags of clothes. We have a window, so when we’re ready for donations, we’ll put up an email for clothing. They would drop it off to our flagship store and then, from there, volunteers and myself will sort through it and then distribute it out to the different sites.

I think we do a phenomenal job in the city just trying to create safe spaces – we say that a lot – for our girls. The closets are an essential, physical, safe space. The kids really enjoy coming into the closets. We have closet ambassadors at one school, A.B. Hart, they work [at] the closet. They help their peers shop for things. I think it’s very important for the community to know that we have a part to play.

It’s just putting a charge back out to, you know, have community question like ‘What are they doing to promote safe spaces for young people?’ So that’s something I would love for people to consider as they’re working with young people or engaging with young people too.

The closets are cool. I really enjoy it. Students get service hours as well so we do try to give them stipends depending on funding and things like that. We just ended our IOBY crowdfunding campaign which, that money will be used to support the scholars at A.B. Hart and then kind of keep it with the equipment at the different closets too. The ambassadors at A.B. Hart have collected over 100 hours as a group and then they can take those hours and those skills and transfer them to the high school and things like that.