Reflecting on My GG Experience

Stacey C., a McMaster University volunteer, shares how her grandmothers’ battles with terminal illness led her to volunteering with GlamourGals and the interpersonal skills she’s gained from this experience.

My name is Stacey Correia and I am the Chapter president for the first Canadian GlamourGals chapter at McMaster University. I have been a chapter president and volunteer for 2 years.

The desire to start a GlamourGals chapter was born from a conversation I had had with my younger sister (the other co-president of the club). That conversation was about two of the most important elderly people in our lives, our grandmothers. Both of our grandmothers were in troughs of terminal illnesses; one with Alzheimers & the other with lung cancer. As we reflected on these two strong women in our lives, we were saddened to see the vibrant & confident women we knew become shells of their pre-illness selves. Before her disease, my grandma with lung cancer would never leave the house with a strand of hair awry, chipped nails, or mismatched outfits. Both of them took great pride in their appearance, which was something I always admired. Makeup, a manicure and all things glamour was what made them feel beautiful, confident & dignified as they aged, and as a family we all tried to maintain that for them (but as their diseases progressed this got harder). However, those acts of service from my family members were again something I always greatly admired as they embodied the respect and care I was always taught to give to my elders. In conversation, my sister turned to me and asked me if the women and men in senior homes got the same chance to get pampered and cared for in that way. I pondered her question and retorted that unless they were physically able to, or had someone to do it for them, then probably not. This was a troubling realization that I could not let go. I got on my laptop and did some research. Lo and behold I found out that my sister and I were not the only ones who felt this way. That was how we found GlamourGals and since that night every day as a GG volunteer has been immensely rewarding and has allowed us to truly give back to our community, and honour our grandmothers (especially my grandmother who lost the battle to lung cancer in 2020).

The qualities I believe make me an inspiring GG volunteer are my determination, empathy, my interpersonal/collaborative skills, creativity, and work ethic.

I have shown determination in starting the first Canadian chapter and not giving up until I was able to get one started in my very own backyard. It was a time consuming process especially with making things work with my university here, but I was always determined to make it happen and I did!

I have shown empathy through every visit to the senior home and every makeover. I have formed amazing connections with the seniors and have received many a thank you note from the senior home and even one from a senior herself. I have always managed to make the seniors feel dignified and embraced during every visit, ensuring that they never felt pitied by our visits or anything like that. I have also often taken time to ensure that the seniors were comfortable during the visits (sometimes changing locations to an area where that senior is more comfortable at etc.).

I have demonstrated my interpersonal & collaborative skills by being able to work with a diverse group of people. I have an exec team of 10 individuals and over 30 volunteers. I have been able to work well with all these people and keep them engaged in our mission, and have even formed more personal connections with some of them. I have been able to resolve conflicts and issues as a leader when they arose (ex; when I had to follow up with volunteers who had stopped attending makeovers and were being unresponsive, or when I had a personal conflict with an executive member, and still worked through our issues so that we could continue to put GlamourGals first)

I have shown creativity when I adapted our programming during COVID-19. Instead of only doing letters, I hosted arts & crafts nights (like making origami and bookmarks to send to our seniors), movie nights, game nights and even came up with an idea to have a GlamourGals magazine. This magazine was the result of the efforts of all our volunteers, but was the brainchild of mine and my co-president's creativity.

Lastly, I have shown amazing work ethic. Starting and maintaining a club is hard work, and organizing events can often get tricky especially with a busy school schedule. I have always managed to stay driven and learn how to balance my other responsibilities with GG work.

My favourite GG experiences include hosting Lauren Berger to speak at an event my chapter hosted for our volunteers. Lauren was an amazing speaker and so inspirational. It took a lot of planning and back and forth but we were able to get an amazing turnout and have a great event! Another one of my favourite GG experiences was when I was able to get my volunteers to create our very own GG magazine for our seniors. I had every volunteer design 1-2 pages (based on whatever topic they wanted from cooking to fashion to trends) and then I worked with my PR officers to compile the pages into a magazine. We are just getting ready to print them and we are so excited to share it with our seniors and the rest of GlamourGals!