Queens Club is a program that is specifically designed to ensure that young girls have the proper social tools to promote self-confidence when transitioning into middle school.
There are currently chapters of the club at Mary H. Wright Elementary School, led by Eliana Davis ‘22 and Jaqueline Hason ‘24, and Cleveland Academy of Leadership, led by Scotty Jenkins ‘23 and Sopharvathdy Vorn ‘22.
“Queen’s Club is a program that teaches young girls self-empowerment through self-reflection, community engagement, mentorship and opportunities to connect and learn from female leaders across Spartanburg,” Hanson said. “This club emphasizes empathy by teaching young women to love themselves so they can extend that same love to others.”
The student leaders plan activities every week based on current events and weekly feedback. To date, they have planned activities such as making vision boards and reading a poem centered around Black History Month.
Davis explained that, during the vision board activity, the girls cut out pictures from magazines that illustrated their dreams and wishes for their futures. Davis described that one of the Queens Club participants created a vision board with pictures of money, a dog and a male figure.
“She wrote out why she chose those three images and her reasoning was ‘money because my family is poor, I miss my dad and I want him to come home and a new dog because our dog just died,’” Davis said. “It’s all fun and games until you realize these girls have been through a lot and do need role models to support them.”
Not only will mentors be empowering these students, but they will also have the opportunity to create reciprocal relationships by engaging in group-based exercises and conversations.
This helps mentors to understand the power of collaboration and encouraging others’ ideas and plans as well as gain a new perspective and promote unity and intersectionality in the Spartanburg community.
“Queen’s Club teaches me to be grateful for what I have and that everyone has a different background,” Davis said. “We don’t all have the same opportunities in life because there is a cycle that is happening in our world. Our work reiterates that it still heavily exists and those girls are struggling.”
“Empowering girls is important to me because I have been in situations where I have been told that I couldn’t do something because I was a female, specifically in my academic career, that caused me to completely change my focus in college and it felt terrible and I still regret it,” Hanson said.
“I want girls to never have to feel like that and to understand they can go into a male-dominated field with confidence and the mindset that they can do anything they want,” Hanson said. “I want them to discover their full potential and utilize it in any and every field they desire.”
Queens club meets at 12 P.M. on Fridays at Mary. H Wright and on Thursdays and Fridays at Cleveland Academy. If you are interested in empowering young girls through support and mentorship, consider volunteering with the Queen’s Club. You can contact [email protected] or vornssv@ email.wofford.edu for more information.
