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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and now we continue our 10 part end of year gratitude series with 10 heroes of community well-being for 2020. We are bringing on 10 heroes or leaders of community groups who may not make the headlines very much but who have helped make life livable in this year of so much grief and so much need and so much thirsting for justice, and equality. There are many more groups out there doing great work, but these 10 have been brought to our attention, some by listeners, some by colleagues or friends.

We are sharing these 10 stories to represent all the ways that some of us are serving the many of us in need of help. We will also have a live Zoom event next Wednesday night December 9th, to honor three champions of community well-being. The station is generously naming this prize, the Lehrer Prize for Community Well-Being. It will come with some cash grants to the winners and you can make a free reservation if you would like to attend via Zoom next Wednesday night at 7:00 at wnyc.org/lehrerprize.

Today we're going to meet one of the three finalists and that is the leader of the group, Girls; Live, Love, Laugh. It's a nonprofit organization that provides youth mentoring programs to underrepresented girls, ages 6 to 16 in Newark. I'm joined now by Allison James-Frison, founder and CEO of Girls; Live, Love, Laugh. It's the youth mentor program and she's a commissioner on the Newark Commission on the Status of Women as well. Allison, I'm so glad to have you on again. Welcome to WNYC.

Allison: Thank you. It's a wonderful opportunity to be here with you this morning.

Brian: Can you tell people more of the basics? What is Girls; Live, Love, Laugh?

Allison: Sure. Girls; Live, Love, Laugh is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We work with underprivileged girls in the city of Newark and surrounding communities. We host weekly workshops to build the girls self-esteem and leadership. We also host self-reflection classes to let the girls see the beauty within themselves.

Brian: I see for example, among your many workshops, there's one called Girls Just Want to Have Fund$. Not fun.

Allison: Yes.

Brian: Funds with an S in the form of a dollar sign at the end. Want to explain to listeners what girls learn in that workshop?

Allison: Sure. This workshop was brought about because I'm grown up, and in my world, budgeting wasn't a part of any conversation that I had with my family or within the school system. We wanted the girls to have a sense of self-awareness when it comes to the value of a dollar and to be self-financial fit so when they grow up to be older with the hopes of them not having to deal with living from paycheck to paycheck.

Just teaching them the importance of a savings account and a checking account and how to utilize things they already have in their home instead of go out and shopping every time they need something new. How to refurbish their clothing they have or the furniture that's in their house. I believe that financial stability is one of the most important things that we can teach our young girls especially during these crucial times during COVID-19 when everybody is having financial difficulties and facing hardships at this time.

Brian: You also have your program called Passport to HBCU. Can you talk about that one a little bit?

Allison: Yes. It is important that our girls are exposed to HBCU colleges. A lot of our girls, the only chance they get to go and tour these colleges is with us. Unfortunately, this year, we couldn't go because of COVID-19. It is always one of the highlight of our organization. Not only are they touring the universities but they are allowed to go out of state and visit these colleges. We take a tour of the college, we have ambassadors that are a part of some of these HBCUs, take the girls on the dorms, and give them a full tour. It's a wonderful experience for them and it gives me so much joy to hear the girls actually talking about going to one of these universities that we had visit.

Brian: That's great. For people who don't know the initials. Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCU. Do you find that that also generalizes, to just going to college in general? Maybe sometimes it's easier for some of the girls from Newark to go in-state to a state school in New Jersey. Why do you target the HBCU, and is there a larger effect as well?

Allison: The HBCUs, we target those because they actually promote Black history. Other universities really don't talk about Black history. Our Black and brown girls need to know the history of the people that came before them. They have a lot of opportunities in HBCU universities. Some girls will not take that path, as you said, so we do a tour of universities and colleges in the state of New Jersey.

I think it's also beneficial for them to see what's out of New Jersey, and what an HBCU College has to offer for them because apparently, none of their parents have graduated from an HBCU, neither have I. It's always exciting for me to go and see what the HBCU is all about so I can come back and provide resources to my community.

Brian: That's great. Maybe in New Jersey, all people know about is Rutgers or Montclair State or something like that. It's a great way to expand their horizons. Another program that you have I see is RoyalTEA Sip and Paint Art. Tell us about that one.

Allison: The RoyalTEA Sip and Paint, we always promote royalty. We always call our girls princesses, and young queens because we want them to know that they are royal. The RoyalTEA Sip and Paint actually allows the girls to paint images of themselves and to expose them to a different career path because when you ask the girls, what are some of the things you want to be when you grow up? Most of them say teachers or a nurse because that's what their parents are, apparently, the goals that they are pursuing.

We want to expose them to a brighter horizon. Art is on the rise. There are so many artists out here now that are doing wonderful things in the community and making careers out of them. We want to just expose them to a different career path than the ones that they are already used to.

Brian: This organization is 11 years old. I see. Do I have that right?

Allison: The organization itself? The entire organization is ages 6 through 13 years old. I'm sorry.

Brian: Right. Oh, the girls are 6 through 13 years old. How old is Girls; Live, Love, Laugh?

Allison: I'm sorry. Girls; Live, Love, Laugh, yes, we've just celebrated our 11th year anniversary in the city of Newark.

Brian: Congratulations on that. What got you started down this path?

Allison: I started Girls; Live, Love, Laugh Inc because of my upbringing. I am a survivor of domestic violence, homelessness, child sexual abuse, and gun violence. I lost both my parents at a very young age so when I started this organization, I chose the name Girls; Live, Love, Laugh because I want every girl that I come into contact with, a chance to live, love, and laugh. That was something that was missing from my childhood. I didn't have the opportunity to laugh like I want to or live the way I want to or even love.

There were times when I didn't want to love myself and I set out to self destroy myself. One day, I had a conversation with God and he spoke back to me and he led this organization on my heart to do. I never even heard of a mentor program because growing up in the project, there were no mentor programs. There were no after school programs for us. I stumbled upon a mentor program with one of my girlfriends and I said this is what I wanted to do.

I didn't know what I was going to do, how I was going to do it. I didn't have a college education. I just had a high school diploma and I was worried that mothers wouldn't allow their daughters to be in the program because I didn't have a higher education. To God be the glory, we are here to celebrating 11 years of being a vessel and giving back to the community of Newark.

Brian: After 11 years, you must have some success stories that warm your heart. Do you want to tell us one or two?

Allison: Sure, yes. One story that always comes to my heart is this young girl, I'm not going to say her name, but I was out sick for a couple of months and I couldn't be a part of the program, and they were making me get well cards. There is one girl, I was on her all the time about math. She always said she couldn't do the math. She wasn't well, and she was failing in math, but on my get well card, she said, "Hi, Ms. Allison. I know you're sick, and you could get well and all that, but I want you to know that I got an A in math, and you're not here to celebrate it with me, but I'm so happy that you stayed on me about my math."

That is always going to be one of my success stories. Just knowing that us being in these girls' lives and pushing them to reach their highest potential, we're really making a difference in their lives.

Brian: That was so good. Do you want to tell us another one?

Allison: Sure. It was a young girl in the program. I'm just going to say her nickname is Coco. She came to me and she said, "Ms. Allison, I'm so happy that you established an organization like this because we really need it." She was only seven years old at the time. For her to come to me and say, "We really need programs like this," was very exciting to me and I said, "Oh, I must be doing something right."

Then she went on to say, "I'm going to start my own organization. It's going to be called Coco Girls." [laughs] It was just so tearful. I'm a crybaby. Whenever the girls come to me and say something to me like that, it always brings me to tears.

Brian: You're going to have to change the name of the organization to Girls; Live, Love, Laugh, and Cry, but crying in a good way.

Allison: [laughs] Yes.

Brian: How has the year of the pandemic affected what you do and the girls you're working with?

Allison: The pandemic, it had a negative effect on everybody, I'm sure not just my organization, but with the girls that we serve, it was just hard to get in touch with them. Some of them didn't have the electronic devices, the tablets to participate in the Zoom classes. It was hard for us to reach out to them. Most of the children in one household, their sharing tablets and cell phones.

We lost funding because everyone who was our funders are putting their funds towards COVID-19 now, so funding dropped, and it was just devastating. Not being able to travel this year around during the holidays. This is when we take the girls on their college tour to HBCU because they are on winter break. We use that time to give them something positive to do during the winter break. Everything is changed. We can't do our second paint.

It even affected our Girls Matter Walk this year, which is usually September the 15th. Mayor Ras Jua Barakaon our 50th year anniversary, he claimed September the 15th as Girls; Live, Love, Laugh Inc day in the city of Newark.

During that time, women and girls from all walks of life, we will all come together at a neighborhood park, Downtown Newark. We walk Broad and Market just shouting girl empowerment, we're singing, we're dancing, and we're having a really good time on that day, just all about girls and women empowerment on that day. This year, we couldn't do it. It was very devastating for us not to be able to do that. We just had about 10 people walk in separate-- Five people at a time just walk for that day because I didn't want the tradition to be lost. We're really looking forward to having it next year.

Brian: September 16th, we should mark that on our calendars, Girls; Live, Love, Laugh day in Newark.

Allison: 15th, September 15th. Yes.

Brian: 15th.

Allison: Come on out and walk with us and have a good time because men come out too. We love to see many come out supporting women in Newark.

Brian: Now, if people are interested in donating to your organization, or if girls or the parents of girls want to get in touch with you about potentially signing up, how can they do that?

Allison: They can go to our website is www.girlslivelovelaugh.org, and there's a contact us button on the website and there's also a donate button up there.

Brian: girlslivelovelaugh.org. Tomorrow in the series, we're going to have somebody who works with older teens. How did you choose 6 through 13 as the age group that you focus on?

Allison: When we first started, the age group was actually 6 through 18 years old, but during the years we learned that when girls become teenagers, they're off to venture different things. They're in high school now, they're playing sports, they want to hang out with their girlfriends. I really love the younger ages between 6 and 10 because that's the most crucial time of girls life.

The thing is the scripture, in the Bible, they say, "Train a child up in a way they should go, and when they grow old, they will never depart from it." That's what I want. I want these young girls to never depart from what we taught them during their lives of Girls; Live, Love, Laugh. We teach them about etiquette. We teach them how to be servants of their community and how to give back. We were going out in the community, cleaning up the community, feeding the homeless. These are the things I want to instill in these girls while they are young.

Brian: Allison James-Frison, founder and CEO of Girls; Live, Love, Laugh at girlslivelovelaugh.org. Thank you so much for contributing to community well-being in 2020 and for being a guest on our show today. I'll see you at the event next week.

Allison: Yes, thank you for having me.

Brian: We'll still see her virtually at the event next week. You can join us too for next Wednesday night at wnyc.org/lehrerprize for your free reservation.

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