For this week’s meeting, we decided to focus on the central idea of never giving up. We began with a quote by American abolitionist and author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who said, “Never give up, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn.” Afterwards, we involved the girls in a group discussion, where we all shared our own experiences revolving around not giving up, and instances where we have wanted to just drop everything and give up, but kept our heads up and kept working hard. We asked the girls why giving up is typically more popular than getting past the obstacles, and the unanimous answer was that it was easier. Following the group discussion on what we could do to never give up, we spent a while focusing on the girls’ math and science homework. We answered every question and we helped them with any problems they had in their schoolwork. When we finished, we moved on to the girls’ favorite topic: volunteering. A few weeks earlier, we discovered that Oak Grove Middle School–where we hold our meetings–had very few recycling bins, which we desperately wanted to change. We wanted to begin fundraising to allow the school to buy more bins, so we began brainstorming numerous new ideas. The girls came up with great ideas such as: hosting a bake sale, setting up a lemonade stand, making our own crafts, jewelry accessories, and even doing a car wash. No ideas were tossed aside, and unfortunately, the meeting ended thereafter, with promises to talk more about the issue at hand -Ashley