Consider Carissa Phelps. Successful lawyer. Prosperous businesswoman. Author of an up-coming book. Former commercially sexually exploited child. Something doesn’t fit there? You might be surprised…
For those of you who follow the fight against human trafficking in this country, Carissa Phelps is known as an incredible advocate for action. The subject of a powerful documentary called Carissa, and now an author of a book that tells her incredible story, Carissa was a runaway living on the streets in Fresno, and caught up in a world of crime and prostitution at 12 …

National Nutrition Month may be over for this year, but let’s talk about our Kids in the Kitchen program, which is the recipient of a $75,000 award from Kashi as part of The Kashi REAL Project™, an initiative designed to raise awareness of the Real Food Deficit and amplify the work of nonprofit organizations like The Junior League that are working to keep “real food” in the minds and hands of communities throughout the country.
But the great thing about the Kashi award is how it will be used – to …

Maybe. The fact is, millions of Americans live in what the USDA defines as a food desert: a low-income census tract whose residents have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. (To see where the closest food desert is to your home, check the USDA’s interactive map here.)
Nutrition has been a core element of The Junior League’s Mission going all the way back to Mary Harriman and her work with poor immigrant families in New York City 110 years ago. The Kids in the Kitchen program is AJLI’s …

That’s what Kashi (think healthy food) will donate to The Junior League for every Facebook “Like” our members, community partners and friends provide until February 22, up to a total of $75,000. Whatever funds we receive – and we hope it will be $75,000 – will be used for grants of up to $5,000 to individual Junior Leagues for their Kids in the Kitchen programs.
The program is in support of The Kashi REAL Project™, an initiative designed to raise awareness of the Real Food Deficit and amplify the work of …

Good question.
It’s no secret that what we call voluntarism is at the heart of what it means to be a Junior League member. We volunteer our time to create lasting community impact. Period.
But the Junior League of Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Inc. has come up with an interesting twist on voluntarism by involving members’ children in a project they can literally get their hands around. It’s called Little Hands, Big Difference.
JLNVB member and Community Vice President Laura Bangor explains: “I was Membership VP last year and we did a focus group asking …

Launched in 2008, the Junior League of Philadelphia‘s (JLP) Project GREEN: Using Nature to Nurture was focused on the intersection of children’s health and wellness and the natural environment. Project GREEN was created with three projects in mind: Campus Community Gardens, the Green Volunteer Corps, and the Riverbend Environmental Science Partners Educating Children Together (RESPECT) Nature Club.
How the initiative has evolved in recent years says a lot about JLP’s commitment to its green initiative – and its willingness to change course to avoid roadblocks.
The Campus Community Gardens project was designed …

Based on what the Junior League of Pensacola (JULEP) is doing with its foster care initiative, we’d say the formula is: pressing need + community support + total commitment + willingness to adapt.
JULEP is in the fifth year of a major focus on foster care, particularly as it relates to the problem of aging out, where foster kids are dropped from their programs once they hit a certain age, typically 18. JULEP’s major outreach project is Steppin’ Out, which teaches young women in foster care essential life skills they will …

Americans have had a love affair with Thanksgiving for generations (along with Canadians, though they celebrate it in October). And, while it is an intensely family-oriented holiday (with lots of football added), Thanksgiving also serves as the catalyst for many Junior League outreach programs.
That’s not surprising, given The Junior League’s long commitment to health and nutrition. But what is interesting about League programs is the variety of ways they are implemented around the basic theme of serving our communities.
For example:

The Junior League of Boca Raton, FL: Partnering with Caring Kitchen, …

Junior Leaguers may not typically think of themselves as philanthropists, although what we do here meets Wikipedia’s etymological definition of the term as “the love of humanity” as well as the practical definition of “private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of life.”
But more than that, a surprising number of Junior League members have used the training they received here to launch separate careers or initiatives that use classic philanthropy tools to create lasting community impact.
Here are just a few examples, all former Mary Harriman Community Leadership Award winners, …

You’ve seen it in the media. You’ve talked about it with other parents. And sometimes your own daughter will open up and talk about it. It goes by a lot of names – cyberbullying…power cliques…and mean girls (they even made a movie about that). The point is, growing up is tough…and a lot of girls feel powerless.
What can we do, as parents, to help our daughters deal with the pressures that life throws at them? And what can we do, as committed volunteers, to addressing the wider needs in our …