Two sophomore students created a club that plans to empower female students and help set them up for their futures.
Emma Dauterman and Peyton Anthony are two students at Revere High School (RHS) who created a new club, Empower Women, in December. With the club, the students plan to help female students at RHS prepare for their lives after high school. They also want to support the women’s sports teams and create a female only space for students.
Dauterman explained why the two wanted to create a club like this at RHS.
“We kind of decided to start the club because we just saw a lot of opportunity in what we wanted to do and like going to women’s sporting games and kind of having a female only environment where we can just do stuff together,” she said.
Anthony stated another, more personal reason they decided to create Empower Women.
“[Emma and I] both want to go into careers that are predominantly male, and we figured that sometimes it’s intimidating to get involved in different career paths and whatnot. And some people need guidance as to what steps they should be taking in order to get into those fields, so we decided to try and help out,” she said.
There are a few simple steps that a student must take when creating a club at RHS. Dauterman explained what she and Anthony had to do to develop Empower Women.
“The process we had to do was we obviously had the idea for the club, created it, and then we had to find an adviser. . . . [Then], we just had to email Mr. Faris and Miss George to approve it. We got a meeting at the end of the week, they gave us the yes, and then we just went from there,” she said.
When choosing their adviser, the students first choice was history teacher Rachel Walgate, but with her busy schedule she found it hard to commit to the club. They then settled on Richfield Elementary School and RHS‘s school psychologist Ashley O’Donnell. She was excited to be a part of the club when Dauterman and Anthony asked her.
“For me, being a part of it I just love the sense of community. I just love talking to you guys here at the high school, . . . being involved and helping be a mentor and a resource,” O’Donnell said.
At Empower Women’s first meeting, the new members made posters to hang around the school and advertise the club. Dauterman explained some of the details of what they want to do with the club’s future. She stated some of the things the club will have to offer on a consistent basis.
“The rest of the year, we plan on having a speaker once a month from a different career field and we also plan to host events and drives, so volunteering and stuff. And we also want to go to women’s sporting events together, like senior night for basketball or swim,” Dauterman said.
Anthony explained how they are reaching out to different speakers for the club.
“What we do is we either talk to friends’ parents that we know who work in those fields, or we try and find good candidates by looking up people from the community that like to help out and are in those fields. And then we reach out to them and ask if they are able to speak on [their career],” she said.
Another resource the club has to contact outside speakers is its own adviser. O’Donnell explained how she can also contribute to the club in this aspect.
“I have a lot of connections outside of here. I’ve been a part of so many things outside of my typical day-to-day career here at Revere,” she said.
O’Donnell explained other ways she can help members of the club based on her life experiences. She said that with her college life and pathway of education she wants to be able to help young students figure out what they want to do.
“I think I bring a lot of insight into things you can do in college. Do you want to be a student athlete? What does that look like? Do you want to be in sorority life? What does that look like? What are different career paths? Like a school psychologist, I had no idea until I was even in college what that was and then I changed my whole career path. . . . I just want to be able to allow female students to feel comfortable [and] have those conversations,” O’Donnell said.
Although the club is just getting started at RHS, Dauterman explained what she hopes will come of Empower Women.
“What we want to accomplish with the club is make it something that’s going to keep on going after we graduate and just make it one of the major clubs here. . . . Something that a lot of people know about, something people want to join because they think it’s fun,” she said.
The club currently does not have a set meeting time or schedule but meets in Sarah Zustin’s art classroom (D201) when they do have meetings. Their future meetings plan to host speakers and be a space for female students to feel comfortable.