VALDOSTA — The 20th Annual Sister-to-Sister Summit sponsored by the American Association of University Women Valdosta Branch is approaching. 

The Valdosta AAUW discussed the upcoming March 3 event during the group’s Thursday evening meeting. 

“This year’s theme is actually Connecting Lives Dots, and so with that being said, we are connecting the dots emotionally, physically, academically and socially,” said Dr. Jamie Foster-Hill, co-chair. “What this is aimed for is to attract young girls, ages 12 to 14, to come out to learn a lot about other females, what they are going through and discuss those different topics, and we’ll have a lot of different speakers here as well as fun hands-on activities to empower these young women.” 

Dr. Beverley Richardson-Blake, president of the AAUW Valdosta Branch, said the group tries to recruit up to 100 middle school girls for the summit. 

“The girls get to interact; they’re girls from different middle schools from this district,” Richardson-Blake said. “They’re not just from Valdosta. They’re from Valdosta, Lowndes, Brooks County, Lanier County, Echols County. They’re from the private schools (and) they’re from public schools, so we have an assortment of young ladies that will be here … so it’s relationship building for them and for us.”

Richardson-Blake said the Valdosta AAUW Branch won the State Presidential Award for its Sister-to-Sister program last year. 

People interested in registering for the free summit or sponsoring the event may contact Quita Jones, (229) 245-2280 or quitajones@lowndes.k12.ga.us, or Foster-Hill, (229) 234-7729 or jamienhill13@gmail.com.

Dr. Cheryl Carvajal, author of “Ghosts of Southeast Kansas” and an area director at Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, was the guest speaker. 

She said the necessity of a college degree has continued to grow, and in the area, there are a number of young girls from families that don’t understand the value of education. 

Carvajal shared how during her undergraduate time at college she would visit rural middle schools along with a theatre group, which included her now-husband Dr. Richard Carvajal, who is the president of Valdosta State University. She said they would encourage students to think about going to college. 

“We even brought a group of 18 girls, one day, to one of our musicals (and) paid for all their tickets and everything, so they could get there” Carvajal said. 

“I think for a lot of them it was the first time they’d ever set foot on a university campus.” 

The next Valdosta AAUW Branch meeting will be 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, at the VSU University Center Rose Room. 

For more information, visit valdosta-ga.aauw.net/.

Kimberly Cannon is a Reporter with The Valdosta Daily Times. Her extension is 1376.