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Home › Articles › General › Girls as Grantmakers

Girls as Grantmakers

Giving, Mentoring and Learning

By Kelly Burgess

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Girls Helping Girls
While the girlcott and its subsequent media attention was an amazing experience, says 15-year-old Rebecca Adelsheim, that has little to do with the nuts and bolts of the Girls as Grantmakers program. One of the first girl grantmakers, Adelsheim of O'Hara Township, Pa., was also one of the girls chosen for the important meeting with the Abercrombie executives. But that was last year. This is now, and there's still work to be done.

The girl grantmakers are chosen to serve a two-year term. The first year is devoted to reviewing grant requests from other girls. The second year the granters follow the programs that have received the grants and help to insure their success. While the entire program is still in its infancy, Adelsheim was thrilled to be chosen as one of the first grantmakers.

The application process consisted of a questionnaire, asking them about themselves and some of the problems they saw facing the girls of this area. Adelsheim says that her answers to those questions, while they got her on the board, would be very different today if she were to answer them than they were nearly two years ago. Growing up in a mostly white suburb and attending a mostly white school, she had never really gotten to know many girls outside of her cultural and economic sphere. She credits the group's diversity with her wider perception of the problems of women and girls. "I don't remember the exact answers I gave on my application, but I know my ideas have changed so much since I filled it out," she says. "I realized so many things that the girls in this county and this country really need just to function day to day, and it gave me a greater understanding of the basic problems facing girls."


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