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Giving Back to Our

Mothers & Daughters

This past Saturday the National Association of University Women held their annual mother-daughter celebration program. The program is held once a year to highlight some of the bright young girls in the community. Along with giving recognition to the importance of a mother’s role in her daughter’s life and the bond that they share.

“The event held this past Saturday was filled with good food, music, doorprizes for the girls and their families and powerfull word of encouragement from women looing to uplift one another.” This is wat Mrs. Bonita Williams, a current member of the organization had to say about the celebration.

The program set to start around 3pm that afternoon got off to a little bit of a late and lasted until around 6pm.

The overall event included words of welcome from the current organizations President, Angelia Rivers and organization members such as Brandisha Ganzy. Followed by the honorees all showcasing a special talent of their choice for the audience.  The girls were then greeted by guest speaker Alicia Turner, WCTV eyewitness news reporter. She spoke to the girls about the importance of always achieving the goals that you set for yourself and to know that they will always have a support system in their corner. Turner gave a little back history on her own life to let the girls know that they all could relate to her in some way shape or form, she really emphasized of the importance of confidence and for them to always firmly love/believe in the goals and dreams in life.

NAUW Tallahassee branch President Angelia Rivers has been a member for over 8 years now and has served in her leadership position for the past four years. She said, “I love the sisterhood that we have, the opportunity to be able to give back to our community is so great and I love what this organization represents as a whole each day that we continue to serve”.

This event has been going on for years within the organization, the original name of the program as The Mother and Daughter Tea but was recently changed to its current name about four years ago. Rivers says the change came about as they notice the interest of the young girls involved started to dwindle, they wanted to revamp the program into one were there message nd purpose is still served but can also be one the middle school girls would love to be a part of.

 But this isn’t event isn’t one that is open to the public, in fat young girls have to be chosen to be honored at this event. But the overall process is quite simple. Letters of interest distributed through the current members to their own personal database of contacts who they believe would be a great fit for the mother daughter celebration. The girls are then required to fill out an application and short essay stating why they should be chosen to be honored. This year’s event had a group of five girls all ranging from 6^th-8^th grade in attendance who were honored alongside their mothers with gifts and framed certificates of appreciation.

At the end of the event girls are introduced to the high school educational scholarship that the organization provides. They were all invited to apply for this post-secondary education scholarship during their senior year of high school.

According to president rivers, the impact that was made during this year’s celebration was so uplifting that some of the organizations women have taken upon themselves to forgo continuous mentorship with the young girls and their mothers as they continue the matriculation throughout these next years of school.

“This will be a first for us, never have we ever started a mentoring program from the celebration, although it has been talked about in the past. It’s just great to see it all coming to life!”