Building Tomorrow’s Community Leaders
“Community leadership and mentoring of high potential young women needs to begin well before they start their careers. It is often the things we learn outside formal academic or work environments that have the greatest impact and influence in our lives, which led to the creation of DM&A’s annual Me and My CommunityTM event. The program is designed for high school girls with high potential, but limited opportunity for exposure to Central Florida’s female executive leaders. The premise behind Me and My CommunityTM is to expose young women to the importance of community leadership”, says Diane Meiller, President of Diane Meiller and Associates, Inc., a performance excellence consulting firm headquartered in downtown Orlando.
On June 19th, Diane Meiller and Associates, Inc. hosted the third annual Me and My CommunityTM. This year, the program welcomed outstanding students from nine Orange County high schools to participate in a one-day interactive problem-solving and mentoring event. Its purpose is to teach high school women the importance of leadership, teamwork, collaboration, professional communication, compromise, and passion in building first class solutions which have the greatest benefit for the holistic success of the community. In partnership with Junior Achievement of Central Florida, DM&A hosts this all day event for high school women that have been selected by their school administrators based upon academic and leadership potential. The project based format provides participants the opportunity to work with their peers throughout Orange County, while being “mentored” by outstanding female community leaders. This year’s mentors included: Mary Mahoney, Principal at J. Robinson Group; Laura Pooser, Director of Development for the College of Health & Public Affairs at University of Central Florida Foundation; Linda Beach, Senior Publisher at Apartment Finders; Florrie Yee, Senior Consultant at Diane Meiller & Associates, Inc.; and Anne Chinoda, Partner at Strategic Healthcare Solutions.
The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Deborah German, Dean of the College of Medicine at University of Central Florida who described her journey to becoming one of Central Florida’s most influential leaders, and more importantly, the obstacles and failures that shaped her success. Then, the young women broke into groups to tackle important community issues ranging from unemployment to health care reform to higher education. Breaking only for a quick lunch donated by Jason’s Deli, the students worked tirelessly to both come up with a solution to their assigned issue and collaborate with other groups to ensure the best outcome for the entire community. A panel of judges comprised of professional executive women including Judy Holcomb, Professor at the Rosen School of Hospitality at University of Central Florida; Leslie O’Meara-Malfitano, Director of Human Resources at Diane Meiller & Associates, Inc; and Maria Camacho, Vice President of Program Management at Wyndham Vacation Ownership evaluated each team on scorecard criteria including their understanding of the problem, creativity, presentation skills, use of budget, and collaboration with others to select the winning team.
The winning team, a group that focused on the issue of accessible higher education for Central Floridians created a program called S.T.A.R., Soaring Toward Academic Readiness, that offered a seven year curriculum, starting in sixth grade and ending in twelfth, that prepared students for success at a collegiate level. This group was presented with a monetary reward that they decided to split evenly between the members of the group and a donation to Operation Positive Direction, an Orlando Police Department youth mentoring program.
For mor information about DM&A’s Me and My Community program, click here.