The “Girl” in the Hey Girl Mentor Program stands for Growing Independent Responsible Leaders. For seven years, Program Director Aloda Sims has used the program to teach adolescent and teen girls to live their lives in a way that inspires others.
It’s the full-circle result of a community member doing the same for Sims when she was a teen. Sims is the lead equity and inclusion specialist for District 14 in the Fridley area. Hey Girl is her collaboration with Fridley Community Center as part of their youth enrichment programs.
The program serves girls ages 10-16 within a 10-mile radius of Fridley. Most girls start as fifth graders in an after-school program. They meet twice per week between 3:30 and 5, then transition to a three-week summer camp.
Activities include cooking and eating healthy meals combined with exercise. They spend a full week on a health curriculum. “I like to make sure that the girls are understanding how their bodies work and how it feels,” Sims says.
They also focus on careers. Guest speakers are invited to discuss careers like interior design, chef work, and business ownership. “I want to make sure that all of my curriculum is based around…what [their] future could look like.”
This past summer, Sims added meditation to the curriculum. “They were like, ‘Oh, my god, Ms. Aloda, we’re meditating?’ I’m like, ‘Just try it. It’s so much better for your body. It helps you relax.’”
She teaches them health strategies by calming, listening, and paying attention to their bodies. “Half the girls went to sleep,” says Sims of meditating. “But it was so fun, and they woke up [saying], ‘That was the best sleep I ever had,’ and it was only like 10 or 15 minutes.”
Although they’ve heard these things before, Sims says practicing in a smaller setting has a greater impact on the girls.
Hey Girl is the result of Sims’s interaction with an African American woman who came in and did activities with her and other girls while Sims attended Washburn High School as a teen. “We had so much fun; she was so relatable.”
The woman shared wisdom and knowledge that left Sims wanting to be like her as an adult. “I wanted to be the person that I needed outside of the home. I wanted to be somebody who could help young Black girls excel and tap into their potential.”
She obtained a coaching license, a coaching master’s license, and a well-being certification and began the Hey Girl Mentor Program in 2017.
Years of experience have taught Sims to reassure parents who think their daughters are too shy to participate in the program. “Sure enough, it could be that on the last day of the program, that same girl that did not want to talk throughout the program, she is talking, she is shining, she’s standing up, she’s being proud,” says Sims.
“It may take the whole three weeks because I don’t push them. The environment allows you to be you. At your timing, you will step right into who you want to be.”
The business is for-profit, but Sims receives donations from the Fridley Lyons Club and individuals who sponsor one or more girls for the summer camp.
By the time the girls reach 9th grade and are in high school, they transition to individualized coaching, where Sims helps them navigate concerns with homework, teachers, parents, and their community.
Some of the high schoolers return to the summer camps as mentors. For a stipend, they help create the curriculum and set up activities. “They get to utilize the tools that they have worked on for the past 3-4 years and foster that leadership within the younger girls,” Sims says.
Getting girls to join the program is not a struggle, but it didn’t start that way. “At first, I wasn’t getting any girls. And I’m like, “What is going on? Why did I have this vision in my heart and this passion, and it’s not flourishing the way that I want it to?”
She credits her husband for pushing her to continue, as well as those who heard her passion and energy when she spoke about her visions for the program. Some signed up their daughters and encouraged others to, and that’s when the program began to grow.
With the program’s success, Sims now attends baby showers, weddings, and family barbecues of past and present Hey Girl members. “It’s built so much success that these girls become my own babies,” she says. I don’t have girls, so these become my girls.”
On April 6, Sims will host a Hey Girl mother-daughter brunch that she wasn’t sure she had the financial means to bring about. “It’s challenging because you’re trying to do something by yourself,” she says. You don’t trust who to share your dreams with.”
The community stepped forward, donating food and a free rental hall for the event. Though Sims thinks about the woman who inspired her all the time, she hasn’t had contact with her and can’t remember her name.
She credits her with inspiring the program, allowing Sims to pass the torch to the next generation of leaders. She says, “Hey Girl, somebody who can stand up strong, stand up with a smile, and always help inspire other people in their community.”
For more information about the Hey Girl Mentor Program, contact them at 612-564-2199. Donations and sponsorship for girls can be sent in care of Fridley Community Center, 6085 7th St. N.E., Fridley, MN 55432, 763-502-5100.
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