When someone thinks of the word pageant, what comes to mind? Gorgeous dresses? The flawless hair and makeup? The shash? The crown? Pageants are misconstrued to be a beauty competition, and people think that the winner is just the prettiest girl. Before I joined this program, I did not realize how much more it was. There is so much more to this truly unbelievable program. 

The crown worn by the local, state, and national titleholders has four points, and each point stands for a Miss America/Miss America’s Outstanding Teen trait: service, style, scholarship and success. Each one of the young women I had the privilege of meeting embodies all of these traits. 

Each young lady has to pick a social impact initiative, which is a community service project they are passionate about. There were girls supporting foster kids in our community, girls fighting against bullying, girls fighting for music in our education system, girls fighting for each child’s right to learn to read, and girls fighting for limb difference awareness. These are just a few of the social impact initiatives in our program. Each one of these young women are so passionate about their community and their community service platform. It is truly so inspiring. 

When people think about style, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is clothing. The young women in this program do get to wear fabulous dresses on stage, but there is more to it than that. Each young woman has an interview with the judges, where they ask her questions about her social impact initiative, politics, community service, and leadership skills. Style is not just about clothes, it is about demeanor and the way someone projects herself. 

This program has many scholarship opportunities. There is a build your own scholarship opportunity for each young woman in the program. We spend weeks going around to local businesses and asking if they would like to sponsor our program. Each girl gets to keep half of her earnings from the build your own scholarship, and the other half goes directly to the program to keep it running for years to come. There are scholarships for the pageant winners, the runner ups, the girl with the most community service hours, the heart of gold award, a student athlete scholarship, and so many more. Even those who do not win the title still walk away with scholarship money. The program keeps the total scholarship earnings in an account until the young woman graduates high school. Then they fill out some paperwork so they can use that money to help pay for college tuition. 

The final point of the crown is success. This program wants young women to be the most successful they can be. They develop public speaking skills that can be used for the rest of their lives, learn how important it is to be involved in their community, and make friendships that will last a lifetime. 

If you or someone you know is a young woman between the ages of 13 and 26, consider this program. It was one of the most fun and incredible experiences with the most amazing people, and everyone gets scholarship money! What more could a person want?