Aqua Girl: Women, Parties, and Entertainment � All for a Good Cause

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Offering memberships is another new initiative. “We want to make sure that women have ownership so we developed our first membership drive where we are going to be creating member benefits and people will have an opportunity to be a part of the work we are doing,” adds Steckler.

The growing success of Aqua Girl means the foundation can provide expanded help to the LBT community. “Since 2004 Aqua Foundation has given away over $250,000 in grants and scholarships. In 2010-2011 we are going to give grants up to $50,000 in addition to expanding our scholarship program to graduating high school seniors, college students and graduate students who identify as LBT and are active in the LBT community. Our goal is to foster leadership and empowerment...

“We are really proud of our scholarship program … we give a grant of up to $5,000 and then we follow them for a year and link them with a mentor in the community, typically a professional woman, ideally in the scholar’s field of study.” The mentor provides academic, community and professional support.

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