Pearl Club aims to help urban girls toward their goals, especially college

Tamasia Johnson is a Promise Coach, part of a mentoring program helping Pittsburgh Public School kids take advantage of the Pittsburgh Promise college scholarship program. But she thought an extra step was needed to help local girls become Promise-ready.

So Johnson started The Pearl Club as another mentoring resource for young women from Pittsburgh’s inner-city neighborhoods.

The program was launched in May for high-school freshmen, sophomores and juniors at Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy 6-12 in Oakland and has already grown to include Pittsburgh Westinghouse 6-12 students in Homewood.

“What I’m trying to do is create a sisterhood for young women based on certain values: strength, empowerment and success,” says Johnson. The program aims to encourage participants to graduate from high school and attend college. “A lot of young women aren’t given a lot of opportunity or are in environments where they can succeed despite their situation.

“We just don’t go in front of a group of students and say, ‘This is what college is like,'” she says of Pearl Club sessions. “We’re in the room presenting them with ways to solve problems. We give girls a mentor and we also focus on setting a goal.” Each girl then posts her goal on the Pearl Club blog and tracks its progress there.

Club members, Johnson says, “learn together, build together and build trust. That’s a support system that college women need and women need throughout their lives.”

The Pearl Club will hold its first public event, called “The Pearl Club presents … Promise-ready Pearls, that’s the goal!” on August 17 at the Squirrel Hill branch of Carnegie Library to show girls of all ages the club’s fundamentals and opportunities.

Johnson hopes this fall to expand from the current 22 students in two schools to include meeting sites at two local churches. In the meantime, she is very pleased with the local response: “It’s actually taken off faster than I thought it would!”

Writer: Marty Levine

Source: Tamasia Johnson, The Pearl Club