girls my name is regina yours and my co host carol voice and group talk is a discussion of opportunities challenges and successes of women and girls in their daily lives girl talk and also be heard on k q community radio at eighty nine point five f m sundays at noon usually we focus on women's issues but today show we have will be discussing girls programs a girl program excuse me a girls program the program is strong girls strong women and this is a program for young girls sponsored by surat to miss international of ashley i'm excited because i'm a volunteer for one of their programs called the lunch but program and so carol would you like and it is for guests i i've lived in the valley for forty years and i've been there so optimise for thirty three years i've been in the medford and the club served as president of both of those clubs and also was a district director was rob to most and i'm a nonprofit director in the area and i also managed volunteers for the state for about ten years pretty good and would you introduce our other guest i would love to have this is a fee a cox who's in the fourth grade at home an elementary school and she's participated in our afterschool a great very good so how did it how were the girls of created into the program there just a raise their hand and say i want to party and the school it's only done it hellman elementary and the school sends out a notice to the parents and the parents determine if it like the schools and the school involved and our principals been so supportive michelle cottle back as gone out to the classrooms and told girls about the programs so it's really up to their parents if they want to see them involved in that and that's all levels of them there are several aspects to it as you know so i understand that there are three different programs yes can you tell our audience what they are sure ok first of all we provide books with good female role models to kindergartners and first graders and we have access to books and then son the high school will do book cases for some of those children so they do that and then our lunch buddy program is  had as i said twenty seven girls are now forty seven girls this year so we're really thrilled with that and then the third aspect is an afterschool program that has some of the parts and that's what sophia was talking about for one for the winter quarter we have a science program based on stem science technology engineering and math and this year they did a lot of engineering principles which was a lot of fun sophia can maybe tell you a little bit about that and then we the second winter term we take them out to about six different businesses to wimp to meet women business owners and women in business or nonprofits so that they can see women in the workplace and in having a business and that sort of thing and then they do an environmental project the last term here which isn't as quite as big a program they're doing gardening i understand and i'm not sure what the other part of that is the center so those are all the different elements of the strong optimised strong girls strong women program oh that's amazing that's very good and regina i understand n that is third grade and the first thursday of every month i go down to hellman and i bring my lunch with me and i meet up with her in the cafeteria and she's got her lunch she brings and she doesn't eat the cafeteria line she prefers to bring her own and we go down to the library and we sit in which chat with each other for about thirty minutes she tells me what she's been up to and i think it's a wonderful opportunity for young girls to have other female role models in their lives i am a real believer in role models i just think there are valuable for all ages you know adults to to interact with women that have succeeded in various fields and i just i just really love it's my first year and i hope that i get to do that next  fall and i've actually done it myself for eight years i didn't involve to the whole thing and i was actually in the medford club originally but i live in absalom and some women actually were involved with some of the girls for five four to five years own that they have to be able to follow them interrupting each other go ahead sophia were you part of a lunch buddies program were you part of a books program what program where you were part of i was a part of the first after school class and what pretzel sticks and marshmallows you made a bridge yes you did afterward we didn't eat the bread a lot of girls snack marshmallows very good so what the marshmallows used for the marshmallows were used for sticking th did they actually go over it yeah at the end when we were making our bridges we saw how many toy cars and weight we could put on it without collapsing oh so when did it collapse and are actually didn't collapse and we marshmallows and so build it and yeah they threw out a couple ideas we were talking and they just let us build ny is very nice so when we went to the businesses which one of those did you like the best the one that i liked the best was when we went to science works and several women and my favorite part of that was when we got to go back into a room that people who don't work at science works usually get to go in and  girls usually in november we're going to start taking them in february and so once we have ideas about what we want to do then we just call people and ask would they be interested in working with us on that so it's like an after school visit and we went to the hospital this year we visited science works we went to oregon the oregon shakespeare festival the new space where they create scenery and have costumes for the new and they're all their new building a women leaders that are involved in doing that so that was really fun i thought was my favorite to do we went to fry family farms for me we went to camelot theater they got to go backstage and hear from their business manager and then the woman that was the used to bring in the plays that just recently retires and we actually went to six different retail spaces downtown ashland we split up the girls and went to paddington and we went to bloomsbury we went to to and then we got they got to eat they've got they went they had yogurt and they went to the tree house and to mixes so we split them up and so they got to hear from business owners that run those kind of stores that's a lot of so there's a lot of women oh yeah just here yeah so yes i think that's great again so role models we just approach them the owner of crown and jewel is actually a parent at home and so the principal called her and sort of things so and we try to have some science base to that let me just explain where the strong girls came from great place to the club is very blessed to have a really long term partnership with oregon shakespeare festival we went blankets and pillows and that's how we make our money  guess and half of that money goes back to the theater and then half of it is used in the community and we had a fund that we wanted to use for some kind of special hands on program and so the current principal of helmand and the child development specialist came up with this rock mr ong girls program and that's where it started eight years ago and so we have funds that we could put into it we pay for the teachers we pay for the school bus we pay for snacks you know and so and then we're all involved in it  you know in different aspects of it so that's where it came from and we're the only club the does that particular program it's our identifying projects it's not something that other other swapping is clubs or necessarily doing  only about ten or twelve are doing the environmental piece right now like sophia has something that conflicts with it on the day it's available she said she would like to do it but she couldn't say so maybe next year you'll be able to yes and yeah great great you trying to get girls involved in science was part of it as well as the mentoring aspect you know so important to have mentors for grabs you know so that's where it came from they got a new principal there right right and the new principal was actually our first science is her steer and she's very enthusiastic about the program michelle cottle buck so great she's great so kevin tell us how do you fund this through our money that we raised with shakespear community money that we raised and that's with blankets and blankets and pillows we manned a booth that shakespear from june through october every night except when they're dark on mondays wears us rob thomas renting those blankets pillows and we've know so i don't bring your own pillows all right and half of it goes back to the theater to fund what's called the fair program which our fellowships assistantships internships and residency is trying to bring in minority people a lot so you know half the money we raise goes back into the theater and then the other half goes into we have a lot of different projects that we do and so we have community gift giving as well as strong girl strong women we have a lot of scholarships so all that money goes back into the community and so how does a woman in ashland get involved and optimise it they just have to contact us and we'd like them to come to t w women can also be involved right as far a strong girl strong women is concerned it's our membership and people from a w and anybody in the community they could call us and say i'd like to be involved in the strong girl strong women program where the lunch money program and we would you know you have to have a crimp checked through the school district and then we would assign them to two girls and what number would they call they could call me at five four one four eight two six two eight eight grade they can call me international and it does a lot of programs in like africa and in you know in third world countries a lot of that goes on we also have representatives at the united nations through our international were represented in six different centers at the u n we're called a what are they how they call them a general concern we have general consultative status with the u n which means we're like a non governmental organization and they listen to what we have to say so we have volunteers or optimists in six different locations including new york that are involved in many many committees and doing giving much input to the u n about women and women's issues so that's the overarching structure and beneath that are four federations which divides the world into four parts like the federation that we belong to is canada america south america japan korea and the philippines that's our federation there is one in great britain and ireland one in the south pacific and then europe covers a tremendous amount of seraphina's clubs all of europe russia and africa right now are in the european federation there's talk of an african federation to be developed when i say soon so we might have five federations then below that we have regions and our region for instance here is oregon washington alaska montana and part of idaho that's our region and then we have districts we don't just have states so there are spore districts in our region and we can go to meetings at all those levels i've been to meetings at all those levels and it's very fascinating i've been to finland australia  montral you know in different places in the americas so you meets your optimists from around the world and build friendships from around the world so that's very exciting i also enjoy going to  programs flow down to the clubs from the federation we do certain thing all the clubs in that federation do certain projects and but they all we all have our own local projects like strong girl strong women and one of the major things we do is a scholarship called the live your dream award which is where cinco live your dream a little your dream and it's for women that are heads of household that are going back to school to improve their american you know their way in life and a lot of them have had tremendous things they've overcome drug and alcohol abuse but that's a big scholarship that all the clubs give together and we were there's five clubs in the road valley and we work on that jointly we have certain things we work on jointly and that's one of them the club gives a number of scholarships and we also give to a variety of organizations in the valley like the community health center the  hospital different you know nonprofit organizations like that and have projects we have international projects too that we do i don't see your parents yes we're not going to be able to do a close up of that why don't you tell us a little built what they are  that's just fun this is a my past presidents pen from ashland and then this is called a laurel society pin and i happen to have been given this by the medford club they had a lottery where they would give spin once a year to a more senior member but you can also buy it or win it and the money raised from this plan goes back to our federation and then they fund different programs with that money like we had  scholarships come back at our regional level that are funded with this with the money from the so that's called a laurel society then yeah yeah so sophia do you think when you are in your career you're going to become  optimist i haven't thought about that before i think it might be actually very interesting and fun so i might make him one that i am now so sure what your career going to be have you thought about and i think it would also be really cool to be a teacher teaching what teaching probably around kindergarten or first grade and carol's a teacher yup cool and so you first year students so  know those are very different very different teaching and software engineer i've always wondered someone your age do you spend time doing video games not really that much like sometimes i get on my computer and play video games but i like reading matter reading a book about your book i like i have a kindle so i mostly read on that  my favorite i like reading real books more than i like mine real books absolutely that's very good so what was the last book you read the last book that i read was from texas with on the last but gosh that's kind of you know at the end you know it's like reading a really good novel and you know you know you get to me and what am i going to do you know yeah you know i have to start up something else yeah i'm glad you're not playing videogames all the time that's a very good little afraid of what some girls and boys are doing when it comes to use of the computer at the college level too time yes no t v but lots of video games and we look over there and see this was somebody in your family used video play video games yeah my little brother play on my dad's phone on you mentioned that you have you follow through with your knowledge but even you you followed on for several years so what are they who how old are they now and what have you learned about those girls as you followed them through for so many years it's not really easy to talk to kids if you don't have children i have to say you have to kind of think of what what to really talk to them about you know and i have a second grader now i've had all levels of girls some of them would be in middle school but i there's one girl especially i still see and we talk to a little bit and i don't some of them have left the area so i haven't really seen them you know i've had such a variety of girls i really enjoyed one girl that was going to be a veterinarian and talked about it and it was fun and it's interesting that they're thinking about careers at this age i know did you and at the same did you think no i don't think so i was more in high school for me personally or college and i didn't do what i thought i might do you know i was going to be maybe be a med tech and i certainly not a man i had to girls you know they started earlier now thinking yeah i know that and there's a lot of career information given out at the high school level you think you know that wasn't so true i don't think when i was younger and at times parents are taking their children on when they're teenagers on college tours yeah oh i had you know when they were into their second year of high school and i think that's amazing i think taking girls out to visit women on businesses and meet women their own business is a fabulous thing to do you know to give them to show them successful women owning businesses i think that's really important for them i really really do we're going to have to finish up our program basically we've come to the end of our show and i'd like to thank our guests sophia really appreciate you coming thank you thank you so much and good luck next year and i think you david willis gary mark robert michael fox and never got a couple you probably have but anyway that's all thank thank the owner volunteers and i'd like to thank our listening audience  and we hope that you learned something today and will join us again soon and remember the girl can also be heard on k s k q community radio at eighty nine point five f m news on sundays and so bye for now and thanks for watching girl talk on rope valley public access community television bye