use this for social

use this for social

Leyla: taking the world, one whirl at a time.

Join us with women's history month, the founder and executive director for girls life, inc., crystal thompson, and thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Leyla: tell us about your organization, i love the concept.

We were established in 2014 with one goal in mind.

And that's to change the world, one girl at a time.

I'm the mom of three girls and i wanted them to feel valuable and important in the world that doesn't always have their best interest in mind.

But i didn't want to stop at my girls, i wanted all girls to feel that way and that's when girlfriend incorporated was born.

Leyla: the mission, education and what other components.

Education is first and we promote that, and self-worth, we want them to feel confident in themselves and we promote high self-esteem and we want them to feel they can do anything that they put their minds to.

How do you instill self-worth?

When you get them into your program, approximately at what age do they start?

We start at age 5 and up to age 24.

So we have a vast age group and we have the girls in different clusters based on their age group.

We have the pearls, 5-9, and 1-15, and then the butterflies 16 and up and we meet them where they are.

Just that you are important, you are smart and you can do whatever you put your mind to.

So they have that constant reminder, can't stop them.

Leyla: so you instill that self-worth and empower.

When you have them and how do you encourage them to use the tools out there in the real world?

And can they still practice that in the household?

It's important for the households to keep up these habits, if you will, and how do you ensure that happens?

Well, we have source saturdays, and when covid wasn't here, we met monthly face to face and have those meetings, and we would invite other prompt women in the community who have expertise in a specific topic, and they think again, we do monthly checkins with them.

We text them during the day and have small groups and reach out to the parents to let them know what we're talking about.

And just to let them know, if you are seeing anything at home that we need to work on, let us know, because we're the extra barrier of protection for the girls.

So when we have those sessions, we check in with them and make sure that they're executing what we taught during those times.

Leyla: so you've been out here for seven years, and have you had any girls that are on their way to kind of graduating from your program?

And have you seen the transformation of a single individual girl, and what you perceive or what you think is going to happen once they left the nest and they go and make it out there in the real world?

Absolutely.

What's so funny, i have about three girls that started out with me since the beginning and they are part of the girls trike.

They didn't want to leave me, and they finished high school and finished college, and now they're business owners in grad school and they have careers, and they're investing their time into the new girls coming in.

So i'm hoping that we did something right.

Leyla: obviously.

They're butterflies who are now soaring, and that's wonderful to hear.

How do girls sign up?

We just had a meeting two weeks ago via zoom.

But that's okay.

Registration is actually open until the 13th.

If you go to the website.

Girl flight.org, it has the link, and you can register and we're doing everything virtual.

No matter where you are, what state or county, register and we're glad to have you.

Leyla: and you have a call for volunteers to join your team?

We do.

We have a call for any session presenters, so if you have an expertise in any topic.

Financial manage many.

Resume writing, college readiness, reach out to us, and welcomed love to invite you to speak to our girls.

We do two topics a month.

And doing virtual for school, it's going to be that girl time, so we would love to have you.

Girl flight incorporated.

Bye.

Back after this.