Curriculum
An essential career and success guide written by Reflections Foundation Founder Kelly Fair. Ms. Fair illustrates each point – from how to get your first job, to how to find a mentor, to how to design a dream career – with examples of the lives of women of color who have achieved great success. Each summer, our jobs and internship component connects girls with paid employment, with this curriculum as the core of the weekly meeting for girls in our summer work programs. In 2021 we hired more than 100 girls into our Every Girl is a CEO paid work program, even in the midst of the Pandemic, providing them with crucial, practical work experience. In 2022, PP had over 400 applicants and was able to hire nearly 160 girls from across the Chicagoland area, including in-person professional development workshops led by industry leaders and job shadow trips to various companies. The curriculum is also used for the job readiness components in all of our core Polished Pebbles programs.
Conference
Inspired by the Every Girl Is A CEO Curriculum, Polished Pebbles developed the annual global career conference to impact girls and young women not only locally but nationally and globally. For the past three years Polished Pebbles has engaged over 300 girls and young women from across the Chicagoland area, states across the U.S., and different countries in Jamaica, South Africa, Kenya, and India. The conference includes four panels highlighting different career pathways from hospitality to STEM to sports management. Each year the conference features one Pink Hard Hat career panel to expose girls from around the world to careers in construction, manufacturing, engineering, or the trades.
