Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Earlier this month, a local organization called Girl, Level Up premiered their first Winter Elegance Soirée event dedicated to the young girls of Payne Elementary School, highlighting and teaching acts of elegance, dining etiquette and the how-to behind being empowered all times as a young girl in school. 

Girl, Level Up Program Coordinator and consultant Talicia McCall said the age group of girls impacted by the event were between the grade level of third to sixth and said her overall goal alongside Founder, Director and CEO of the organization Brittany Houser is to teach young girls about etiquette, self-care, wholeness and just being well, overall.

“Friday, we focused solely on etiquette, hygiene, self-care, self-worth and confidence,” McCall said. During the event, the girls learned dining etiquette, how to properly set up a table that contained all the elements, silverware, plates including décor.  At the end of the event, we had a confidence runway as well where the girls affirmed themselves as young girls of elegance, that were crowned and given their flowers early, to commemorate their progression so far as a young lady, growing up in society who will soon bloom into young women.”

McCall said she wanted the girls to know that attended the event that Girl, Level Up is here for them and that Houser and McCall are both born and raised from Selma, which means they can do anything being from a small town and that even outside their school settings to know they do have a community, and people around waiting to empower them.

“We want them to walk away being confident in who they are,” McCall said. “We want them to know how to be able to go into any situation and handle themselves accordingly.”

McCall said Girl, Level Up plans to host other girl empowerment-driven activities such as this, in the near future and said as a local florist herself, she feels the event was a bittersweet moment with the girls that she will never forget. 

“On Friday, being able to come back to my hometown of Selma, Alabama, impacting the young ladies of Payne Elementary School that are one day going to grow up and go out into the world and just share that they went to this, is priceless to me. It just really makes me happy but I can’t cry right now, I would have to get home and cry but I love being able to come back and give back to the community and empower our young ladies so that they can go out to the world and bloom intentionally.”