jemyl again

You may have seen my earlier post about jemyl. I nominated her for the internet project Drop a Love Bomb (part of the "It Starts With Us" network, and they chose her for their project for the week. (Thanks, Lauren and Nate!) They're partnering up with Kind Over Matter this week, so people on their network are hearing about Ellen, too.

So far, people have left almost a hundred and fifty supportive messages, and they're coming in from all over the world. I achieved my goal: Ellen now knows she's not alone, and there are people out there who care.

I love kindness on the Internet.

Positive message for girls

I think I've blogged about Operation Beautiful before. Here's a great way the message has spread, empowering high school girls.

Apparently, inspired by a mentor who mentioned Operation Beautiful to them, five high school girls attending Colleyville Heritage High School in Texas decided to form a club Redefining Beautiful: One Girl at a Time. It's pretty simple: on Tuesdays, the girls wear the club T-shirts and no makeup. It's spread to over 200 girls at the school, and now girls at other schools and even around the world are taking note.

The formation of the club at Colleyville and the wide interest in it at other schools is reflective of the growing dissatisfaction many have with the message spread by TV, magazines and the Internet that girls have to look a certain way to be attractive, said Suzanne McGahey, the club's faculty adviser.

"It is definitely a response to that ... I think the girls wanted to send a positive message that you can be beautiful no matter what the circumstances," McGahey said. "It's about empowerment and self-affirmation for younger girls."

The girls wear sky-blue T-shirts with their club logo on Tuesdays. As a show of support, boys at the school will soon wear dark-gray Ts with purple lettering that says "Give me that girl" on the front and "That's the you I like best" on the back. (link)

As the mother of two high school girls (who don't wear makeup, actually) I really like this story.