I wasn’t sure when exactly the announcement became official, which is the reason I held off on posting this here, but I’m excited and delighted to report that my employer, Thomson Reuters, awarded $3000 to Girls Write Now last year, as part of the company’s 2013 “Community Champion” awards, because of my volunteering there. (By day I work in TR’s legal publishing division and am known as Rebecca, Senior (Tax) Editor (and writer). Otherwise, obviously, I usually go by Maud nowadays.)
Girls Write Now pairs talented at-risk teen girls with mentors — authors and journalists — who meet with them regularly one-on-one and support their writing. What impresses me most is that the girls go on to college. So these mentoring relationships have the power to change the mentees’ lives not just for a few months, but forever. You can see this happening in my favorite video, from 2009, of one of the girls’ readings.