2214 Basse Road, San Antonio, TX
The mission of national non-profit Girls Inc. and its affiliates is to serve girls and young women ages 6-18 by fostering long-term mentoring relationships within safe spaces for girls to develop their strengths and take charge of their futures. Girls Inc. deploys an evidence-based, pro-girl model to address the systemic barriers that hold young women back today. Within pro-girl, girls-only safe spaces, Girls Inc. teaches young women to be Strong, Smart and Bold.
- Strong – Programming that teaches nourishing habits, including stressing the importance of positive choices, a healthy diet, rest and self-care, to create the resiliency essential for future accomplishment.
- Smart – Programming that prepares girls for fulfilling work and economic independence. Specific career opportunities and pathways are described, with a focus on STEM fields that experts believe will offer the largest number of highly-remunerative professions for which demand is growing – professions in which women continue to be underrepresented. Girls Inc. also provides access and opportunities for young women to meet and learn from female role models and community leaders. This exposure demonstrates to young, underprivileged women that women can and do succeed in all realms.
- Bold – Programming that fosters positive self-image and intellectual confidence, encouraging girls to develop and use their voices. Girls Inc. wants to see young woman become comfortable taking risks, learning from mistakes, and growing.
In 2004, Girls Inc. inaugurated its San Antonio chapter. A majority of its participants come from impoverished communities of color, with program attendees almost exclusively Hispanic. These young women struggle, growing up in neighborhoods affected by violence, in under-resourced schools, and without access to adequate nutrition or healthcare. Birth rates among teenage young women of color are twice as high as among white teens.
In 2020, sixteen years after its establishment in San Antonio, Girls Inc. acquired a permanent headquarters facility, enabling a quantum leap in its capacity and capabilities.
In September of 2022, in partnership with Texas Mezzanine Fund, and Chase Bank, Crescent closed on a $9M Federal NMTC financing which will enable Girls Inc. of San Antonio – eighteen years after its establishment – to complete and fully equip its new headquarters and youth activity campus, providing a safe space for San Antonio’s underprivileged young woman of color to develop their strengths, learn from mistakes, and take charge of their future, according to the proven Strong, Smart, Bold model.
The completed campus will rank as a vanguard initiative designed to recover ground lost during the pandemic, during which time narrowed horizons, academic underperformance, violence and abuse have proliferated among San Antonio’s disadvantaged young women of color. The new Girls Inc. campus will double the number of young women attending the evidence-based programming offered by Girls Inc., from 2,500 annually to 5,000 annually. FTE staff numbers will double as well from 15 to 30.