Our Mission

Polished Pebbles creates communication competencies that ensure the employability of young women in the future workplace. In collaboration with schools and community partners who host our mentoring programs, our 600+ volunteer mentors, and our wide range of corporate partners who provide job shadows and practice interviews each year to our elementary and high school girls, we help girls become great communicators at home, school and in the future workplace, to positively resolve conflict, and avoid violent and disruptive behaviors.

In short, we help girls become great communicators at home, school, and the future workplace. We also help young women shape the future workplace. Polished Pebbles equips girls in the greater Chicago metropolitan area with skills that allow them to develop the confidence and ability to:

    • Speak up in class
    • Join groups and leadership positions
    • Communicate effectively and respectfully
    • Peaceful interactions with peers
    • Prepare for future careers
girls-mentoring-program-preparing-future-workforce-communication-skills-Chicago-IL

Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program is an initiative of the Reflections Foundation – a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) approved charitable organization recognized by the IRS.

PURPOSE

We fulfill our mission via our Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program, through which we seek to replace the school-to-prison pipeline with a school-to-career pipeline for low-income African American and Latinx girls. No other program for girls of color in Chicago combines our communications-based Social Emotional Learning, career readiness, and career connections components.

Through our school and community-based mentoring, social emotional skills training, and job readiness and internship experiences, we address Chicago’s “other” crisis of violence against girls. We provide girls with transferable skills to successfully resolve interpersonal conflict and overcome childhood trauma; along with communication and work readiness skills that enable girls to be less vulnerable to sexual violence and sex trafficking as we empower them to be more engaged in school and graduate on time.

VISION

Polished Pebbles seeks to eliminate the “hope gap” experienced by too many girls of color in Chicago and nationally. Our Every Girl is a CEO curriculum introduces a myriad of new worlds to girls who rarely leave their neighborhoods. To us, success is a girl who not just attends school but who is engaged in school and taking leadership in her classroom, school, home, and community.

    • A girl who sees the breadth of opportunities available to her in the future.
    • A girl who lives in poverty who has learned about the career ladders in multiple industries and who is able to make an informed choice about how to best pursue a career that matches her interests and strengths.
    • Success is a girl who knows how to resolve conflict and who can take the communication and soft skills they learn in our programs and apply them at home, work, and in her community.

We are training the future leadership of corporate America, the nonprofit sector, and the civic sector. We are helping girls who are far too often trapped in a cycle of poverty and the criminal justice system to discover that they are entrepreneurs, scientists, CEOs, managers, and leaders.

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