Community Voices by Darice Wong: GECA senior organizes an event to train young women as leaders of tomorrow

Click here to find more stories published in the April 3 – 16, 2019 issue of Gilroy Life

Senior year of high school is strange.

It’s scary. Awkward. Really exciting, but . . . also really stressful. (The adjectives could go on forever.) You’ll find yourself looking anxiously ahead as the next stages of your life are about to happen. Simultaneously, you’ll also be reflecting on how the last few years have unfolded.

As a senior looking back, something I’ve spent a lot of time doing is coordinating community events: festivals, gatherings, fundraisers.

Yet, despite all this time spent planning, my high school years have been filled mostly with, well, unplanned experiences. In fact, one of the things I expected least was the very first community event I put together — and how it’s grown beyond what I ever could have pictured.

That event — now known as the Future Women Leaders Conference — started out as a far smaller “networking fair” co-developed by my friend Sameera Khan and me almost three years ago, with the same essential elements: guest speakers, resource booths, and workshops meant to educate and uplift girls in our community.

Neither of us had very high expectations. We weren’t even sure that what we were doing was possible as high schoolers.

Still, we took a chance on ourselves to try and make the event a success because we believed in the value of what we were doing. And on the day of the event, we managed to pull everything together, despite all the obstacles, emergencies, and flaws.

That was supposed to be the end of our project. But things were far from over. The event also led us to meet one of our guest presenters in person, Margaret McCann from the  AAUW.

She believed in what we were doing, too. She was the one who encouraged us to put on the event again, this time as the Future Women Leaders Conference, with a bigger team and even bigger ambitions.

We had no idea that would be the start of a journey spanning the rest of our high school years and beyond.

I’m excited to announce that this year’s event is Saturday, April 6, at the Morgan Hill Community Center from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There will be food, entertainment, and plenty of empowering workshops on topics including Public Speaking, Healthy Relationships, Conflict Resolution, and Philanthropy. It’s a fantastic opportunity for middle and high school students (of any gender) to learn from some incredibly inspiring leaders, many of whom are from our local community.

Our second iteration of the conference last year showed me that we can encounter mistakes and still build upon those experiences to create something better. But as the third iteration approaches, I think this whole journey reveals another lesson: that trying to make a change requires risk. That not knowing what’s going to happen is okay, if not necessary.

Without embracing the unplanned, that crowd of 30 that we’d drawn that first year would have never become the crowd of 200 that we’re now expecting this year.

As cliche as it sounds, it’s never too early to begin thinking about the impact that you have on your community. You can start something or take actions, no matter how small or imperfect. Who knows where it can lead?

Much like the unknowns of coordinating any event, it’s impossible to plan for everything in your life. As I prepare for graduation and whatever comes next, I’m definitely feeling that senior year uncertainty more than ever before. But I have the strength to keep trying to do what I believe in, no matter what. Because things won’t always go as planned — and sometimes it makes life all the more amazing.

Sign up at www.fwlc.eventbrite.com

Space is limited.

Darice Wong is a senior at Dr TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy. Darice enjoys advocating for STEM education and is interested in finding ways to combine social initiatives with computer science and art, her two favorite subjects.