Reflecting on My GG Experience

Emma G., the current president of the GlamourGals chapter at Bay Port High School, shares three traits she feels are critical to her role as a GG volunteer and the ways in which GlamourGals has helped her grow and develop her passions.

My name is Emma Georgia and I am the current President of the Chapter at Bay Port High School. I have been a GlamourGals member since September of 2019, which was the beginning of my Sophomore year.

I think three traits that I display and are important to my role as a GG Volunteer are Consistency, Creativity and Passion. As the chapter Vice President, and now President, I have always strived to be consistent and creative.

Beginning of my junior year, our leadership team at Bay Port had started completely new, with very little GG experience among the team, along with two brand new advisors. From the beginning, consistency was key in terms of creating a successful chapter, due to the fact that consistency was missing during my years as an underclassman, resulting in me not being able to be involved nearly as much as I was hoping too. With rebranding the chapter within our school, My main focus was to be consistent in sharing information as the entire year went on, as that was one of the main issues from years past.

Creativity was something our entire chapter, along with GlamourGals as a whole, had used this past year with the pandemic, as a way to adapt to all of the changes that are occurring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it be finding areas to allow for proper social distancing, applying for the Hershey's Heartwarming Grant or even just card making itself, creativity was always being used, as a way to impact our chapters service.

Passion is what has really driven me to connect so much with GG, especially during this pandemic. After high school, I am wanting to become a Psychologist, to help battle the Mental Health crisis that is currently going on worldwide. Helping others is a huge passion of mine, especially those in my community. With isolation levels this year, mental health everywhere became more prevalent, but especially in the nursing facilities, with senior isolation being near 100%. My main goal in every card I made, or every event I planned this year was to be able to remind the local seniors that they have people in their corners, supporting them, even if it was not directly.

My favorite Experience with GlamourGals so far has been the Spring Suncatchers for Seniors event, or the Holiday Goodie Bags. I feel that these events have allowed me to build my leadership skills, and given me experiences that I have not yet had, such as organizing a donation drive within the community, and applying for a grant. Aside from these being able to help me grow as a person, I feel that these events have been awesome for the seniors, as for they have received an extra gift, which is something that they may have not received lately. These events also got our community involved in the battle against senior isolation during these unprecedented times.

Overall, GlamourGals has been an opportunity for me to grow and develop myself and helped me pursue my passion of helping battle the stigma and severity around Mental Health in our community. I am beyond excited to have another year with our Bay Port chapter, and hope to be able to continue connecting with the seniors, before leaving for college, where I aspire to join (or create) another GlamourGals chapter at the next school I attend.