This morning, she starts

A few months ago, at our Induction Dinner, one of our newest scholars pulled me aside and told me she had been on our website. Reading my posts. Every one of them.

I didn't know what to say.

This young woman, brilliant, kind, quietly determined, was heading to one of the most prestigious universities in the country. And somehow, in the middle of all of that, she found her way to these little letters I write from my pink chair.

She told me she wanted to know more about the community she was joining. And I thought, she should know that this community wants to know her too.

I won't share everything about her story. It's hers to tell. But I will say this. She wrote in her application that she has grown up in the in-betweens. That she learned early what it meant to carry weight that no young person should have to carry. That somewhere along the way, certainty gave way to a quiet, creeping apprehension about who she was and who she was allowed to become.

And yet here she is.

Today, her very first day of classes, she walks onto that campus for the first time as a college student. I have been thinking about her all morning. Wondering what that moment feels like. The newness of it. The weight of it. The promise of it.

She didn't let that apprehension win. She decided she was tired of watching the world move without her voice in it. She wants to lead. She wants to serve. She wants to spend her education not just on her own success, but on the people who are most often overlooked.

That is who you welcomed into this sisterhood back in May.

Because of you, she doesn't have to walk through those doors lost or alone. She walks in with a mentor, a community, and the knowledge that there are women in her corner who believe in her, maybe even before she fully believes in herself.

She came to dinner and read my words. I hope she reads this one too.

Zoey, you are worthy of every bit of this. And we are so glad you're here.

With gratitude,

Ginny