Tea Party for Colored Girls!

                                                                        
Making strides, 27 year old college student Kelly Snider has decided to give back to young girls within her community. This is something that you do not see everyday. A woman who has no child of her own wanting to give to the younger girls within her community. She tries to do as much as she can to give back to the children who are not that fortunate to get all they are asking for, so she gives what she can to bring that little bit of joy to these young ladies.                                                                    

Snider is apart of other events with children that is in her day to day life. She plans and sponsors youth co-ed easter hunts, summer cookouts, back to school giveaways, halloween parties/candy drops, thanksgiving activities, and christmas events every year for the last 6 years. She has been doing these things since the age of 21. 

                                                                   

This particular event is special to her. This is her first event that she has done by herself to truly give back to the young girls. She chose the girls in her neighborhood who is less fortunate. She wants them to have an idol to look up to other than the images they see everyday on television, pictures on billboards, social media etc... One major motivating factor for her was when she went online and googled ideas for her Tea Party and she was unable to find any pictures of colored girls partaking in any Tea Party.

She then got to work on making this event happen. Finding the china wasn't the hard part it was figuring out where she was going to host the event and how she would get the children there. So Snider got some of her family members to volunteer to drive the children to the destination that she decided to use; which is where she works on the weekend. A recreation center, so they drove from Harlem to Mt Vernon. She had girls from the age of 4 to 12 at the event which amounted to 24 girls in total.  When the event was over she gave the children gift bags filled with chopsticks, travel napkins, hand sanitizers, hair clips, mints, notepads, perfume nail polish, personal pencils and tea cup shaped note pads. The children also left with another additional gift outside of their gift bag which was a brand new book.

                                                                       

The main goal of the tea party was to open their eyes to other things such as table etiquette, meeting new people and being able to form a bond between them and other girls their age, so that they may build a relationship with each other and become more aware of other things that society may have to offer. The next Tea Party will be in a few months so the mentoring for these young ladies will continue and hope fully i will still be here to keep you guys updated.

Some words from the host herself.

"Kelly Snider i'm a youth development worker. i work with youth of all ages. I have two jobs both working with youth. My degree major was also early childhood education at CUNY Hostos. I'm also certified in youth studies. I am working with youth as far as their development, personalities, morals, personal strength, social skills, ambition, determination and everyday life problems. My alarm clock every morning is knowing that at 3 p.m there will be a child somewhere who had a terrible day at school and is feeling like it's the end of the world but me knowing that a simple "how was school today or did anything crazy happen in school today" could be something that makes them feel better. The ability to talk to others and offer ideas to help, encourage, motivate and make someone feel better is something i definitely cannot live without."