Program seeks to mentor teenage girls

By Wade Coggeshall

Katie Wolfe just wants to “keep it real” for teenage girls.

By that she means finding mentors for these girls who can help them lead a healthy life: mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

It’s why Wolfe, a coordinator for Leadership Hendricks County’s Youth Encouraging Philanthropy, created Get Real, Inc., a non-denominational ministry for girls in grades nine through 12 who are not actively involved in a youth group or church. The “real” stands for respectable, educated, able, and loyal.

Wolfe was inspired to start Get Real after volunteering at a pregnancy crisis center while living in Ohio. She was an elementary teacher before taking maternity leave. The volunteerism was supposed to just be part-time, but quickly became more.

“I just really felt a call to go there,” Wolfe said. “Once they found out I had a teaching certificate, everything else fell into place. I’m kind of using my past for the good of others.”

Get Real came to fruition after Wolfe took a girl to the teen version of Women of Faith. Called the Revolve Tour, it utilizes celebrities to help get its message across.

“On the way home she said, ‘That’s great, but I can’t call any of those people if I have a crisis,’” Wolfe said. That gave Wolfe the inspiration to find mentors at home.

“It’s surprising to me sometimes, the girls that are in church,” she said. “It isn’t a reality to them sometimes of what the power of God can give them and who they were created to be. That’s really what we try to show them, that there’s a plan and purpose for their life.”

She started Get Real out of Danville’s Northview Christian Church. Now Wolfe is taking the program countywide. Participants at an April meeting in the Hendricks County 4-H Fairgrounds and Conference Complex will learn responsible use of current technology and be matched with churches and mentors by request.

“There are a lot of girls out there growing up in homes that aren’t church-going families, which isn’t bad,” Wolfe said. “Yet when a crisis arrives, they need somewhere solid to turn for advice.”

To help pay for the spring conference, Wolfe has organized a daylong event for women Dec. 5 at the fairgrounds. Called “‘Tis the Season to Celebrate Women,” it features a holiday fashion show, shopping safety and assault prevention awareness, lunch and dessert from The Bread Basket, door prizes, more than 40 vendors, and live entertainment.

Michelle Medlock Adams, author of more than 32 women’s and children’s books, is the featured speaker.

All-day passes are $20 in advance or $30 at the door. Tickets for just the shopping segment (1-6 p.m.) are $5 in advance or $7 at the door.

For more information or to buy tickets, visit the website at www.celebratewomen.info.

“All the proceeds will go to April’s event,” Wolfe said. “That way we won’t have to charge the girls an arm and a leg.”

Get Real is really just starting in Hendricks County, but Wolfe says there’s already a great deal of interest. Many local companies and entities have called wanting to get involved, she said. The non-profit also is under the umbrella of the Hendricks County Community Foundation. Tax-deductible donations may be made to HCCF at 5055 E. Main St., Avon, IN 46123 (write “Get Real” in the memo line).

“Even if a girl comes from a good home, it’s always good for her to have another woman in her life that will support her and give the same advice the mom would give,” Wolfe said. “You have to hear it from someone else sometimes.

“Sometimes it helps having a woman who’s willing to be transparent with girls and share their past — saying, ‘I’ve either been there or done that, you don’t want to do it.’ Or if she’s already gone through some trauma, she can relate and say, ‘This is how I was able to get through that.’ That’s what we’re all about, just being real.”

For more information on Get Real, visit the website at www.real-reflections.com.



wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com

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