Unlocking Boise and Salt Lake City

October has been a crazy month for the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project (SSSP), but also a very memorable and exciting month for us! After the flood of support we were acquiring on our Instagram account, SSSP decided it was time to start growing outside of Colorado. With the amount of people interested and resources available Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, Utah, were chosen for this exciting new adventure. We had amazing results in each city, and learned a lot about what exactly the vision for the future of SSSP looks like. WAY down the road, the dream is to have charters established in all 50 states, with trained volunteers to host our workshops. Idaho and Utah seemed like a step in the right direction!

Both workshops were amazing, but the amount of support experienced in Boise is worth mentioning. Months leading up to the event, we had the lovely Aneta (whom we met through Instagram) working hard to fundraise for the cost of materials and travel expenses to Boise. She also found the local high school, Borah High School, to host the workshop; finding a location is half the battle! Due to unfortunate circumstances, Aneta could not be at the actual workshop to see her hard work pay off, but we want to acknowledge that without her it would not have been possible!  One of our volunteers, Brittany, offered up her counseling office for our volunteer meeting and it was exciting to finally meet all the volunteers in person. Most of the volunteers were a result of networking on Instagram, others were room I dragged up with me, and one was a friend from Colorado who had moved to the Boise area. All of the volunteers were AMAZING and such inspiring women; all with their own successes and love to share!

The support and miracles do not stop there. Last minute we had to find a new place to stay and a fellow church member’s mom offered up her home to us! During our drive to Boise another amazing piece of this event fell into place. I was asking Amber, a volunteer, if she could be responsible for picking up pizza for the girls’ lunch. Before I knew it, she had found a catering company that would provide food for our entire group. Open Table Catering provided the lunch for all the girls and volunteers for FREE! Little Caesars may only be $5 a pizza, but feeding 60 people can add up fast! Not only was it free, but it was amazingly YUMMY! Let me re-emphasize that they volunteered to feed us a meal fit for a king, with less than 24 hours’ notice! If that wasn’t enough, Amber also managed to get the local news, KTVB to cover the workshop and spotlight SSSP on their newscast!!! 

The amount of support was incredible! Due to the support of the Boise community and the ambition of our Boise volunteers, SSSP will be starting our first charter at the beginning of the New Year! This is so exciting for us!

While Idaho had many participants, our Salt Lake City, Utah, workshop was on a much smaller scale. The number of sign ups may have been few, but the impact we were able to make was large! The girls there were so sweet and eager to learn how to enhance their sparkle! As for volunteers, I was fortunate to have 3 current roommates join me and another college friend who has since moved to the SLC area, volunteer for this event.  Having our workshop at the Draper Library was only possible with the help of my friend Andre. He also was kind enough to provide all of the snacks for the sparklers on the day of the workshop. He also gave me his time to listen to me stress for the past month or so.  I’d also thankful for my family in Utah, who housed my roommates and I, along with all my friends who tried spreading the message about the workshop to their friends on social media! We know another workshop will be held in Utah in the future, and we cannot wait to see how our presence can grow in the coming years!

Between the communities of Boise and Salt Lake City, my Board of Directors, friends, family, roommates (who had to deal with me during my less pleasant points), and volunteers, I could not be any happier with the potential SSSP was able to unlock in October. The exciting part? This is only the beginning! The SSSP is only going to keep growing and continue to help young girls and women alike, realize their self-worth everywhere! 

With Love,

Ciara