A strong supporter of feminism, senior Peyton Stewman created a project for female members of EAST that she believes can help instill confidence in the next generation of girls. A list of 16 girls from Hellstern Middle School was given to the ladies of EAST to mentor through the girl’s club that EAST members are trying to implement. The girls who are in the club will mentor their designated middle school girl for an hour every week.

“The purpose is to build self esteem in girls. I have done research and 7/10 girls will miss out on daily activities (school, doctor appointments, sports) because they are insecure. That is shocking and wrong. I want to change that number for girls at Har-Ber,” said Stewman

For now, it’s just girls in EAST mentoring to get the project started. However, Stewman thinks it would be awesome for guys to start participating as well. The project is centered around building self-esteem, and Stewman finds that everyone, not just girls, struggle with that.

“I am very passionate about feminism. I think that in order for girls to have equal respect in our society, we need to build each other up. As girls we too often tear each other down, and that is not doing any good,” said Stewman.

EAST has yet to start mentoring, but they are hoping the mentors will visit their girls once a week at Hellstern during advisory or their lunchtime. Since Stewman is a senior this year, she won’t be here next year. She hopes the program will continue in the future, and the few underclassman that are on the project now will be the ones to expand it in the years to come.

“Our hope is that a high school girl and a middle school girl will build a relationship. We want it to be one on one,” said Stewman.

Stewman knows that there are several girls who are willing to help. Considering that nearly every girl has experienced first hand how hard middle school can be, it’s obvious that being a teenage girl is anything but easy. Since having the opportunity to watch girls build each other up, Stewman wants more than just EAST members to take part in this experience.

“We want lots of Har-Ber girls willing to mentor. They might not get a girl immediately, but we are trying to expand the program to other schools as well. Contact me if you would be interested in mentoring,” said Stewman.

Another mission set by EAST for inspiring girls to be intelligent, compassionate, and bold is the miss HBHS pageant. This event is annual and every year the winner attends EAST and the clubs community events.

“Applications are due on December 11th for the pageant, and you can get them in the EAST room and in the office. We want all girls to join even if they have never been in a pageant. We are going to make sure that all girls are confident in themselves and their abilities when they go onstage,” said Stewman.

Senior Jaiden Tedder is over the mentoring program and has set up the meetings with Hellstern, along with planning activities for the mentoring program. Tedder believes the mentors are all hard-working and reliable and though Stewman created the mentoring idea for EAST, Tedder has made that idea a reality.

“I did start the program but the project was all her idea! Everyone in our group is very passionate about girl’s self esteem, but we all kind of had our own ideas about what we wanted to do with the project. Stewman really wanted to focus on the pageant and preparing girls for life later. I wanted to work more with younger girls and I thought a mentoring program was the perfect way to do that. Peyton has so many great ideas and we’ve found a way to connect the mentoring program to the pageant,” said Tedder.

EAST is not only working to help prepare these young girls for high school through their own personal life experiences, but as mentors they are also learning and benefiting so much. They are receiving an opportunity to make a difference, and Tedder finds that having the chance to impact someone’s life firsthand is really beautiful.

“I definitely support feminism! I love girl power and I believe women have so much to offer the world and the fact that we’re still second to men in so many areas is ridiculous. We need strong, bold, intelligent women to stand up for what is right. That is why we started this project! We want to help to instill boldness and the importance of intelligence in these girls,” said Tedder.

Junior Elisabeth Sugg is also a part of the mentorship but is under Tedders command, acting as her assistant.

“We are learning communication skills and getting to meet new girls we are mentoring. Right now we are focusing on one school which is Hellstern Middle school for our mentoring, but we are also going to start a girls club at Har-Ber which Kaci Hollingsworth is in charge of,” said Sugg.

The girl’s club, otherwise known as empowered, will be run by senior Kaci Hollingsworth. This he club is taking the ideas that EAST is teaching in the mentoring program and instilling those ideas in girls here. Everyone struggles with self confidence and self worth and high school girls need help with it just as much as the middle school girls at Hellstern do. EAST is planning on having the members of the girls club also mentor in the mentoring program.

“The girls club is called empowered and we want it to be a bonding place for Har Ber girls involved in all different things from athletics to band! It’s the same project, just another piece of it and it should be starting pretty soon,” said Tedder.