Girls Inc. - A Road Trip To Sucess, Girls Inc. Celebrates 50Th Anniversary!

Girls Inc., Celebrates 50th Anniversary!

Girls Inc. - A Road Trip To Success

by Andrea M. Ciccocioppo
and Edward C. Truax

Most of us are familiar with the film which chronicled the trials and tribulations of the teams of women ballplayers who paved the long and dusty road in becoming, truly, "a league of their own." The league’s itinerary not only drove them across home plate in sports history, but also to the forefront of a journey over the highs and lows of our own modern American history—a trip that generations of girls have taken and continue to take each year, even in our own hometown.

On May 2, Girls Incorporated kicks off their year-long celebration honoring 50 years in Harrisburg, with Mayor Stephen Reed offering a proclamation declaring May 2 to be Girls Incorporated of Harrisburg Day.

For the past five decades, Girls, Inc. of Harrisburg has been a strong, yet quiet vehicle in the community, guiding girls ages 3-17 over the long and bumpy ride from childhood to womanhood, colliding head-on with such issues as family life, self-esteem and how to achieve success. The goal of Girls, Inc. is to teach the girls that these issues need not be the end of the road, but rather potholes which can be paved over and left behind on their road to success.

Yet, how is one to understand the meaning of accomplishment without having first viewed the starting point, the players, and that often mentioned "road less traveled?" Isn’t that what awards and celebrations are all about? The fullest understanding of the implications of a battle waged and won? All that we hold to be truth, whether in taboo, laws or simple expectations would suggest so.

Let’s talk about this particular "road less traveled." It may be that you know someone who’s walked it ... maybe you met them on it. While other routes were available, such as Girl Scouts, sports, or even personal mentoring, for those being honored around the nation this month, the vessel has been Girls, Inc. The road map, often a sort of patchwork of changing directions and speeds, if you will, it is the log book of a trip that, as the poem goes, "has made all the difference."

The driving force behind the success of Girls, Inc. (which was founded as the Girls Club of Harrisburg) is delivered by the various programs and information which they offer to their members. By "putting a lot of effort, time, and, to be perfectly honest, a lot of prayer into working with the girls from the perspective of a relationship—getting to know that girl, of searching for whatever it is that makes her special, something she can succeed in," explains Executive Director, Angela Brooks.

Perhaps the first and most important step in facilitating the girls’ journey is identifying what baggage each girl is carrying with her. In many cases, Brooks notes, the girls are weighed down by family dynamics. "They have a horrendous fear of having to survive independent of relationships. They lack trust and hope because they haven’t really had the luxury of a relationship [with both parents]. They only know what they see. When we talk about children, we always focus in on parents. I believe that when these children look out, they can say, ‘well, my parents did this, or my parents did that’ but when I talk to them, they begin to verbalize that they just don’t know of anybody that they can trust to be a consistent part of their lives.

"We work on training them to have a relationship, whether it’s an employer to employee relationship or a relationship with their parents or their peers or other adults," Brooks continues. "They are so untrusting of adults and I think, in general, it’s a two-way street. It’s gotten to a point where people are afraid of kids and so, therefore, it’s a breach and it’s very hard to move through that."

The next step of the journey is confronting the fears that each girl faces. One of those fears prevalent in today’s journey is violence—girls in violent situations either as victims or as perpetrators; a fear which, Brooks mentions, is common to her girls as well as girls in non-urban communities. "Some of these things which are happening to the kids are not territorial or geographic, it’s just happening to the kids. [Violence] seems to be on the rise in some very specific places, but it is also on the rise in places where we don’t read about in the newspaper. You can read about the rise in the city of Harrisburg, but I believe that (Superintendent) Dr. Holtzman will tell you that he’s seeing that same rise in Susquehanna Township," Brooks notes.

To tackle these fears, Girls, Inc. "purposely puts certain rules into place that just don’t allow certain things in a controlled environment," Brooks explains. As an example, Brooks cites the territorial concerns being projected in the city of Harrisburg. "The kids uptown don’t deal with the kids on the Hill, and that is perceived as a big issue among the girls. We don’t have that, and we have never allowed it to be an issue," she affirms. "When there’s a new girl coming in, we tell the girls that a new girl is coming in and that everybody is going to go out of their way to help this person feel comfortable. The bottom line is that they’re more than just a group of girls who come into this building every day—that they’re actively involved in making friends and building relationships and talking about their dependency somewhat in a situation where they feel comfortable being themselves and sharing,"

Brooks notes that, perhaps the biggest challenge that today’s girls face is identifying what their roles are and committing to the steps that are necessary to achieve that. Girls, Inc. gives them the green light in such a pursuit through mentoring relationships and other means which help shape their individual goals and talents. For example, Girls, Inc. houses a computer lab run by and for the girls, who are taught not only how to implement various programs, but how to maintain the computers, too, thanks to the generous donation of used computers by GPU Nuclear.

Providing that vehicle for the girls is not cheap for this nonprofit group, which is why relationships with other organizations and individual supporters such as GPU Nuclear is so critical to their success. "We are primarily funded by the United Way of the Capital Region and we participate with them and they with us on a regular basis. We also do independent fundraising and, in some cases, we provide services to other agencies on a contract basis, as well as from the tuition that the girls pay," Brooks explains. Which brings an interesting twist to the road ahead and the speed at which Girls, Inc. will travel that road.

Harrisburg’s Girls, Inc. serves an average number of 145 girls during their after-school program. Financially, they are running near the upper limits and, Brooks adds, "We will not absorb so many girls that we reduce our ability to deliver the programs or in any way challenge the integrity of our programs." Brooks believes that maintaining quality in all Girls, Inc. does will allow them to do more in the long run. "We consistently face the belief that if there are girls out there who need us, as we search for funding, the validity of the programs and the outcomes of our programs will speak for themselves," she explains.

As long as girls continue to reach out for assistance, Girls, Inc. will continue to lend them a hand in their journey, even when the course changes along with the times. "Our senior staff comes together on a regular basis to talk about what we’ve read in terms of statistics and information on young women and youth in general. We are all into it with these girls," Brooks enthuses. "We talk to them and deal with them, then come back together and talk about what we’re hearing and what needs to be done," she explains. "We put a lot of time and effort into thinking about what the girls have told us their needs are, and what we see as their needs. We really do try to fit the needs of all the girls who are here." Currently, Girls, Inc. of Harrisburg is working on a program dealing with the issues of women, girls, and violence, to be piloted in local schools.

And so the traveling companions—both the girls and Girls, Inc.—continue to traverse the long and bumpy road with intrepid determination, knowing that, when the dust settles, each will gaze clearly over the road to success and see just how far they have come.