Alliance Schools to debut #LikeAGirl mentoring photos
Alliance City Schools will open a photo gallery this week that shows off its #LikeAGirl mentoring program.
About 50 students from kindergarten through eighth grade took part in the program, which invited the young women to a photoshoot meant to inspire strength and empower the Aviators to believe they can accomplish anything.
Mentor program takes off: School district pairs young girls with older students
The photoshoot, which took place in early February, brought a record number of #LikeAGirl attendees to Alliance High School, where they spent the evening preparing for and participating in the photoshoot. Students from the Alliance High School cosmetology career tech program volunteered to do the young girls’ hair and makeup, hyping them up so they felt confident and fierce.
Afterward, the students took turns taking a series of photos, with them dressed as athletes and band members or just being themselves with friends. They also took photos with the high school students who have spent the year serving as mentors, showing the young girls they, too, can be successful leaders in athletics, arts, clubs and academics.
Three stations were set up for students to take photos, which were taken by current digital art and design students and alumni of the program who returned to support the event. The current students edited the photos and turned them into posters for the young Aviators to keep as inspiration.
The #LikeAGirl posters will be available during a gallery walk event from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the AHS Auditorium. The gallery will be open to the public and free for all attendees.
“The photoshoot far exceeded my expectations,” said Stephanie McKnight, adviser for #LikeAGirl. “To have the resources right here in our schools to pull off an event of this magnitude is remarkable. Students and alumni from the AHS digital art and design, video productions, JTC, cosmetology and sports medicine career tech programs collaborated to give the girls a unique and hopefully memorable experience. I am so proud of the results.”
The #LikeAGirl program was created in 2019 by two students, Mia Holt and Chloe Pasco, while they were in McKnight’s sports medicine program. They recruited the help of Carli Beckett, who was taking part in the interactive media class, to take the photos. The three students set up photoshoots with female athletes as a way to combat the negative stereotypes associated with girls sports. McKnight continued with the idea of #LikeAGirl and launched the mentoring program at the beginning of this school year.
Pasco and Beckett returned to AHS to help with this year’s photoshoot and to see how their initial idea for #LikeAGirl has developed over the years.
“Younger kids always look up to older kids. I know when I was younger, I always looked up to the older high school athletes because my dad coached basketball for the high school. I always wanted to be like them,” Pasco said. “It really does make a difference and a big influence. It’s crazy that #LikeAGirl is still going on.”
Five years later and the idea that started as a class project has amplified to become an inspiration for dozens of students at Alliance City Schools.
“Being able to see what the older girls can do and wanting to be like them, that’s what all that matters,” Beckett said.
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Alliance High to give peek at #LikeAGirl mentor program
