We're excited about the new look for Girls of Promise!   WFA's new logos were designed by Exit Marketing.

In 2003, Summer Hall was an 8th grade student at Lake Hamilton Junior High in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  That Spring, her Pre-AP Algebra I teacher invited her and two other girls to the "Girls of Promise" conference that was being held at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  In Summer's words, "The highlight of my Girls of Promise experience was learning HTML code.  During one of the breakout sessions, we learned how to create a simple text webpage and how to change the colors of the background and text.  This small experience with coding led me to take programming classes in high school."

Fast forward to today:  Summer is a Junior at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock majoring in computer science - two big life decisions influenced directly from her Girls of Promise experience!  Summer shared with us that, "Seeing all of the successful women at the Girls of Promise conference I attended in 8th grade inspired me to excel in my studies so that one day I too could be a leader in my field.  I am still committed to that goal. Through high school I took all of the advanced math and science courses my school had to offer.  Now that I am in college, I have joined the Society for Women Engineers to help learn about opportunities in the computer science and engineering fields.  I would have never believed any of this possible without seeing women who had made it possible."

Summer wanted to help ensure that more girls get the opportunity to have similar experiences as hers through Girls of Promise.  She will be leading 10 8th grade girls through their Girls of Promise - UALR conference experience on Saturday, April 17!

The 2009 Girls of Promise conferences marked 10 years of Girls of Promise programming for the WFA!  The Girls of Promise Statewide Committee took advantage of this milestone to make the program even more powerful.  Girls of Promise vetrans returning with their promising girls or returning to volunteer will notice a few changes this spring! 

Each of these changes came about because Girls of Promise alumnae, chaperones and volunteers shared their ideas on how to make attending a Girls of Promise conference an even richer experience. 

As we are starting a new year, we are also starting a new season of Girls of Promise.  On February 6, the first Girls of Promise conference of 2010 will be hosted at Arkansas Tech University - organized and implemented by Jill Brown, Girls of Promise - ATU chair, and her local committee!

With the first Girls of Promise conference of the year almost here, another tradition is beginning.  From the hard work the WFA staff, the Girls of Promise Statewide Committee and volunteers, we are thrilled to announce that a Girls of Promise Tool Kit has been created!  This Tool Kit will allow local committees to become more active in the planning an implementation of their conferences - as well as allow the WFA to grow the Girls of Promise program to even more communities across the state!  So, thank you to all the people that worked so hard on getting this together and for ensuring that Girls of Promise is a wonderful program!

- Margy Merkle Niel (pictured left-most) is a member of the WFA Board of Directors and is the current Girls of Promise Statewide Committee Chair.