Girl friends: Group mentors young Lakeview women

In a world where questionable role models like Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus rule, teenaged girls are sometimes at a loss for thoughts and plans for the future, according to members of a women-led nonprofit group aiming to change that world. To combat this problem, these women came together to form a girls’ mentoring group that meets twice a month at the Lakeview Public Library.

“It’s a place for girls to congregate and talk about issues that they may not otherwise want to talk about or have the forum to speak about,” said Sepia Owens-Villas, co-founder of the 1st Things First Foundation of Health and Wellness. “I think it’s very positive to see other women who … are successful, so that they can see that this is achievable for [them] as well.”

Owens-Villas and her 1st Things First co-founder Dr. Michele Reed, DO, were excited to start the mentoring program in October, after Lakeview resident Blossom Martindale approached them with the idea.

“I started with girls because I think, with women, it’s so crucial that they have the right tools and resources to be able to effectively contribute,” Martindale told the Herald in a recent interview. “We wanted to make sure that we’re taking some positive women and really just … being role models for them and helping them to think through what their future’s going to be like.”

The girls, who are between 10 and 16 years old, meet with their mentors on the first and third Saturdays of the month. On average, some 17 girls attend the two-hour sessions to work with eight volunteers, among them Doris Hicks, a teacher at the Maurice W. Downing Primary School. They learn about financial literacy, self-care and enhancement, community service and the importance of education. According to Reed, a life-long Lakeview resident and local family physician, the holistic approach promotes health and self-confidence.

“We’re just trying to encourage the young ladies to exercise like they should, to eat like they should,” Reed said, “but along the same lines, we’re concerned about how they’re doing academically, we’re concerned about how they’re doing socially, we’re concerned about the mental aspect.”

Those were among the concerns Martindale had prior to approaching the 1st Things First founders — concerns sparked by a complaint lodged by her teenaged daughter. Martindale and her family moved to Lakeview two years ago from Connecticut, where schools are high ranking. When her daughter started at Malverne High School, she told her mother that it felt like something was missing — primarily interaction with teachers.

“For a 14-year-old to tell me this — I knew that we needed to do something as a community to kind of support some of that and give them a little bit of direction and guidance and open and honest conversation without feeling that they’re going to be reprimanded,” said Martindale, a consultant for State Farm Insurance.

But she wanted to handle it the right way — through a nonprofit with access to some of the programs State Farm offers. And, coincidentally, 1st Things First was looking for new opportunities to reach out.

“The vision of 1st Things First is to create communities where individuals make preventive health care a priority. And when you think about that in terms of creating communities, you have to start very early on,” said Owens-Villas, a breast cancer survivor and the administrator for the Department of Family Medicine at Jamaica Hospital Center in Queens. “[The mentoring program was] a perfect place for 1st Things First to start because we have these young girls — what better thing to do? In addition to teaching them about community service and their finances and the importance of education, we can build health in there as well and start making them see that should a priority early on because you can’t get rich, you can’t get education if you’re sick. And, so, it just worked hand-in-hand with what we wanted to do.”

While teaching the principles of preventive health care and community service, among other things, the mentors — who underwent training by the Long Island Mentoring Partnership Program with the help of State Farm — are also leading by example.

“We’re forming a support system for these ladies where they can have an open discussion with young ladies their age, but then also be able to talk to an adult who might be a physician, or something else they might aspire to be,” Reed said. “We’re developing life-long bonds.”

Reed and Owens-Villas were honored last weekend at the Civil Service Employees Association’s 17th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon for their work with 1st Things First. They received the Achievement Award. Martindale and fellow mentors brought a group of about 10 girls with them to the event to expose them to the possibilities of success.

“It’s learning,” Martindale said, “and it’s giving them tools that they could use in everyday, practical life. … They’re going to learn how to give back to the community, they’re going to understand what community service is, they’re going to understand what etiquette is, they’re going to understand what saving means, having a good education is.”

While parents and community members and leaders are glad to have the program, it seems the girls participating in it are exceptionally receptive to its message.

“The fact that they’re coming back for two hours on a Saturday — to me that’s a big indicator that they enjoy what they’re doing,” Martindale said.

Although currently focused on the Lakeview girls’ mentoring program, 1st Things First is planning to expand its reach into other communities and possibly start a boys’ mentoring group at some point. Visit www.1st-things-1st.org for more information.