The message to the “Great Girls” of Foundation for Youth from the “Wonderful Women” supporting them was to be brave, and to always be themselves.
The annual Great Girls Wonderful Women Luncheon provides an opportunity for women in the Columbus community to support FFY girls and their endeavors, including participants in Girls on the Run, where participants train with mentors for a 5K run and Smart Girls, which provides classes about healthy lifestyles and attitudes. At the event, FFY participants are seated with women leaders from around the community to have lunch and talk about goals, dreams and future plans.
In its fourth year, the luncheon welcomed 300 people Tuesday to the annual event at FFY, at 405 Hope Ave. Organizers hoped to raise $10,000 through the event, which goes to Foundation for Youth’s general scholarship fund. The fund enables the organization to serve children of the community who need assistance the most.
Keynote speaker Elaine Wagner, a Columbus City Councilwoman who was born and raised in Columbus, shared her story about learning to be brave, and to be herself, by first paying tribute to her parents, Ryan and Jean Hou, who came to Columbus in the 1980s when there were fewer than 10 Chinese families living in the city.
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When her parents arrived, they went to a restaurant to eat and realized that every single person’s eyes were trained on them, just staring, she said. With a language barrier, and some cultural barriers to overcome, the couple raised two children, Elaine and her brother Ethan, she said. But they did it without having a supportive friends and family network and Wagner said she remembers always being with her parents growing up.
Her parents became U.S. citizens, established the Columbus Chinese Association, and also established the Chinese Language School.
“They did it all to build a better life for my brother and for me,” Wagner said.
Wagner, who works at Cummins Inc., then fast-forwarded to her post-college years, when at age 23 she returned to Columbus and found herself in a bit of a rut — getting up, going to work, going home, and the next day doing it all over again.
Wagner’s parents suggested she join the Columbus Chinese Association board. As luck would have it, seven people were running for seven board positions, with Wagner as one of them.
Learning through experience
“So we all got in and through my poor Chinese-speaking skills and a misunderstanding, I became the first female president and the first American president of the organization,” she said, which prompted laughter from the audience.
She quickly learned that being on the board meant doing a lot of work, organizing events throughout the year and leading a team of board members and volunteers.
“I was learning on the fly and made a ton of mistakes,” she said.
One of those mistakes was having communication issues with the board treasurer at the time, Wagner said. With all of her other association responsibilities, she put off meeting with the treasurer repeatedly, with an attitude that the board member should just handle the finances, and she would handle the volunteers and events.
When the treasurer submitted a resignation, Wagner went to her parents to talk about it, and said she was surprised to be told by her father that the resignation was her fault.
“You are totally wrong,” her father said to her.
Wagner said her father advised her to sit down with the treasurer, and when she did, she learned that some funding for the association was already earmarked, and could not be spent, which is what the treasurer wanted to discuss.
“I apologized to her,” Wagner said of the moment. She also apologized to the entire board. “It was my first time apologizing and admitting fault publicly,” she said.
And while it was difficult, Wagner said it served as a reminder that she was human, and she could admit a mistake and make it right again. The treasurer took back the resignation and the two worked well together from that point on.
Running for public office
Wagner then told a few stories about running for Columbus City Council in 2015, admitting she had no idea what she was getting herself into.
“And I’m kind of glad I didn’t know,” she said. Politics is a “completely different world and I learned quickly how to navigate that space.”
As a political newcomer, she was surprised to find that just deciding to run did not generate a positive reaction from some people she encountered. Many of them questioned why she was running, what her position on various city issues would be and the big question — just what was she going to do for her them as her constituents.
“It was pretty naive of me to think that no one would ever question my motives,” she said of the realization that she needed to be ready for the tough questions.
She signed up for political candidate training, worked with mentors, signed up for Toastmasters and attended and spoke at every event she could to practice public speaking, she said.
“Because I was terrible at that, too,” she said.
“Accepting feedback was my first big lesson,” she said. “How to receive it, how to understand it, how to do better.”
Self-awareness is the most important skill to have, she told the audience.
She heard all the naysayers — those who said she wouldn’t win, they wouldn’t support her, she was cute but could not be taken seriously, that she was a joke and that she couldn’t win because “Asians don’t vote,” she said.
“And I thought, ‘Why would I expose myself to this when I could go home and stream Netflix,’ “ she joked.
Tips for girls
She told the girls in the audience that she turned all the negative comments into fuel to work harder to win the election, which she eventually did, one of two Democrats to earn city council seats in that election.
“It has been the best and hardest four years of my life,” she said of her first term on the council. “I won because I worked harder and I was brave enough to show who I really was.”
Wagner closed her talk by quoting children’s author Dr. Seuss, who once wrote, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
After Wagner’s presentation, the girls and women, and the men who were also in the audience, were asked to write an inspirational word of encouragement to the FFY Great Girls, positive affirmations that were placed on the window outside the FFY gym for all to read.
“Write about a time you were brave,” said Beth McNeely, German American Bank regional senior vice president, who was a co-emcee for the event with FFY participant Nicole Warfield. In addition to German American Bank’s support, Faurecia was the title sponsor for the event.
Braelei Ernest, 9, a fourth-grader at CSA Lincoln Elementary School, said her favorite thing about the luncheon was the chance to listen to the great speeches. “And listening to the quotes that they were giving,” she said of the Dr. Seuss references.
She said she wanted to be an Olympic gymnast and a Ninja Warrior someday, and after that planned to become a teacher.
Karina Willats, FFY chief development officer, said the theme of the event, “Be Brave, Be You,” came from discussions about the world that girls encounter each day.
“We’re saying, ‘Stand up, be brave, be who you are,’ “ Willats said. “So much of the world expects you to be a certain way. We want our kids to be themselves and feel good about that.”
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People interested in donating to Foundation for Youth may visit the website at foundationforyouth.com/donate.
For more information, call FFY at 812-348-4558.
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