Video by Caelan Woryk and Daniel Jackson
Young and Motivated’s motto,”women with purpose,” shows that its members are women with big goals. Young and Motivated is a new club that aims to empower and motivate women on Cabrini’s campus.
Young and Motivated was formed by its president, Meghan Dougherty who wanted to create a sense of unity between women on campus as well as help them improve their self-confidence. Since its start in September, the club has grown to include 44 members.
“I came up with this idea that I could get a bunch of strong, confident females from all different places, experiences and walks of life in the same exact room and get them to work together on projects and give back,” Dougherty said.
To turn this idea into a club, it needed to have an advisor. When he was asked, Saleem Brown was unsure if he wanted to take on the role.
“At first I was taken aback because it was something new to me. It was a group of girls, so my first thing was ‘go find a woman advisor’ because I don’t know how to live in a woman’s shoes,” Brown said. “That was really a challenge and I stood back and said ‘I don’t know, ‘ but to challenge myself I thought that I would give it a shot.”
Since taking the job, Brown has overseen things such as meetings and activities and assisted the main board of people in running the club. Instead of his main challenge being figuring out how to advise a female-centered group, it is having enough time to focus on the club. He leaves a lot of that to the board, but helps to approve events and ideas the board has, such as their community service events.
When forming the club, Doughtery noticed that a lot of girls on Cabrini’s campus were doing very well academically but were not what she called ‘culturally competent.’ That is, they didn’t have any experience with community service or being involved with the world around them. Through Young & Motivated, Dougherty aims to educate the club’s members and change that. This is done through community engagement activities such as “A Shoebox for Christmas,” where club members fill shoeboxes with gifts, wrap them, and deliver them to local children.
“I want it to be when they graduate Cabrini they can have numerous experiences that they look back on that they can say changed their lives,” she said.
The club now meets every Monday for its members get to know each other, encourage each other and discuss other activities for the week.
Those interested in being a part of Young and Motivated can find out more by following the club on Instagram, or contact jmn333@caberini.edu to sign up.
