January 2008
Happy New Year! I have set my handful of New Year’s Resolutions, and I hope that later in the year I can admit to holding myself to them – we’ll see how it goes.
As some would say, this entire month, my time was spent “crunching numbers” as it was the first few weeks of what is known as “busy season” in the world of public accounting. With this in mind, I did not have time for anything but work, as I spent the majority of my time in meetings with clients and my engagement team, reviewing client’s files and documenting my findings from my work performed and discussions with the client.
Despite the long hours at work, I did have the opportunity to have our first Big for a Day Program, in conjunction with Pittsburgh Cares, a Hands On Network affiliate. In November 2007, I formed a partnership with Pittsburgh Cares, in order to increase mentoring opportunities for volunteers and children throughout the Greater Pittsburgh Area. Our first initiative was to follow a program model that I created and utilized as a Program Coordinator, at the University of Pittsburgh, for one-time mentoring activities, to include “Littles” who are currently on the waiting list to be matched with a “Big” from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh, and students who were interested in becoming a “Big”, thus, the name “Big for a Day”. Through my experiences, I have found that these programs are a wonderful recruitment tool, as it allows individuals to see what is like to be a full-time “Big”, and usually, after participating in the program, they ask what is the next step to becoming more involved and becoming a “Big” in a community-based match. Also, the program model is then introduced to student leaders on the campus, who can then put together their own event in the future, therefore, continuing the spread of awareness and increasing the number of mentoring experiences available throughout the region.
For this month’s Big for a Day, the program included a series of diversity activities that celebrated the rich history of diversity on which Pittsburgh was founded. The focal activity included the chance for each mentoring pair or “match” to decorate a square of what they thought of when we asked them to think of the city of Pittsburgh. In the end, we placed all of the squares to form our own diversity quilt and it was truly amazing, because through the eyes of the children, there were so many different ways to see our wonderful city, and thus, it lead to our explanation on how diversity allows multiculturalism, the ideology of including people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, to develop and form in our society today, just as we had that day, in our quilt of Pittsburgh.
On a different note, this month marked a very special time for the Miss America Organization, as it was time for Miss America 2008! Even though I was unable to attend the pageant in person this year (since I was stuck back in PA, using my 10-key and crunching away), I was there in spirit, to support Rachel Brooks, our Miss Pennsylvania, as she was enjoying an experience of a lifetime. I am so very proud of her accomplishments and her recognition as a Non-finalist Talent Award Winner. She represented our state well, and most importantly, she stayed true to herself during a changing time for the Miss America Organization. I know she has great things ahead of her, and as much as we would have loved to see her as the next Miss America, we are happy to have her coming back home and continuing to serve as Miss Pennsylvania 2007-2008.
As for now – back to work for me and stay tuned next month, for February’s update!
Happy New Year,
Jessica Megliss
Miss Three Rivers 2007-2008