Mike Wolanin | The Republic Tashvi Manthri, from left, Jennifer Steinwedel and Quincy Langenderfer take a selfie with their origami butterflies during the annual Great Girls, Wonderful Women luncheon at Foundation for Youth in Columbus, Ind., Oct. 9, 2025.
Becoming an engineer. Going to state or even world in robotics. Getting good grades.
All of these goals were just some of what young ladies attending the Great Girls, Wonderful Women luncheon Thursday wrote on the inside of colorful origami butterflies they made themselves, placing them on a whiteboard to be displayed in Foundation For Youth’s lobby.
“(I had) a lot of fun,” Kaylee Mattingly, fourth grader at Richards Elementary School, said following the luncheon.
This year marked the 11th annual Great Girls, Wonderful Women fundraising luncheon, presented by Foundation For Youth. The theme for this year’s luncheon was “Your Voice. Your Power. Your Future,” encouraging girls to use their voice in a powerful way and using that voice to shape their future.
“… I love (the theme) because sometimes as girls, we are not always encouraged to use our voice… sometimes we don’t really know our own power,” emcee and community leader Whittney Wood-Gaines said at the luncheon. “So I’m really excited to look out and see all of our future leaders and ensure that they feel confident in using their voice.”
All funds raised from the luncheon go toward supporting Foundation For Youth’s programs and scholarships for these programs. These include Boys & Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Columbus Youth Camp and the foundation’s various sports programs including youth basketball and youth aquatics, JCBank Treasury Management Officer and committee chair Ashley Abner said.
“… the FFY prides itself on serving those kids who need us the most, regardless of any financial challenges that their families might have,” Abner said during the luncheon. “Scholarships are vital to reaching those students, and last year, you helped us raise $62,000. So this year, we would love to match, we’d love to exceed that number, all for scholarships.”
Lorie Mount, attorney at Voelz, Reed & Mount, LLC, served as this year’s keynote speaker. In sharing her story to where she is now and how she found her voice, her power and her future, she said her story didn’t start off destined for success, but her journey began in the small town of Scottsburg.
“… neither of (my parents) had gone to college and only one of them had a high school diploma. My mom worked in a cabinet factory when I was growing up and my dad worked in an auto parts store,” Mount said. “We lived in a very modest, two bedroom home and by the time I went to kindergarten, they had already divorced. But my childhood was not unhappy.”
Mount said her hero growing up was her father, who she said always believed in her and encouraged her to read, learn and get an education. In the third grade, the husband of Mount’s teacher, an attorney, visited and spoke to her class. That was the first time she learned what attorneys do, she said.
“And after I met Mr. Dollens, I can ensure you I bought every book that I could afford from the Scholastic Book Fair if it was about courtrooms or attorneys or the history of our judicial system,” Mount said. “I’m sure Scholastic was probably thoroughly confused about who in the third grade and fourth grade was buying these books.”
By the time she reached sixth grade, Mount said she was beginning to find out who she was and what interested her. She gained interest in basketball, began writing poetry, and the more she read and studied, the more she knew she wanted to be an attorney.
As she began to find her voice, she said she began to find her people, such as her friend Kalee who she met in kindergarten. Mount said they were inseparable, and the two bravely left their rural elementary school together to the bigger middle school. As she walked through those doors, Mount said she felt she was too insecure to have a strong voice.
However, she said Kalee helped her find her voice, lifting her up and reminding her she had a voice. As she entered high school, she said her voice was strong and she was finding her people. Then at 16, her father passed away from cancer at 44 years old, the hardest challenge she said she’s ever faced.
Mount said she couldn’t find her voice or her power anymore, her grades started to drop and she sought out bad decisions. But throughout everything, she said Kalee was always stood by her side. And even 40 years after the two met, Kalee Luedeman attended Thursday’s luncheon.
“You know, after I lost my dad, I was naive enough to think I would never have power because of where I’d been and where I came from, but it’s a funny thing, you find your power strangely more in the hard places than you do in the easy ones,” Mount said. “Anything we go through that hurts, that brings you to anger, that makes you think life isn’t fair, remind yourself that as bad as that thing was, it helped you realize how powerful you really are.”
Though her guidance counselor told her she didn’t think she would graduate, Mount said she overpowered the odds and graduated on time. And though she knew she didn’t come from a family of doctors and lawyers, she knew she wanted to go to college and to law school.
Mount attended Indiana University Southeast and graduated with a degree in elementary education. During her six years of teaching, she said she always told her students they could do anything they put their minds to, but she later realized she wasn’t doing that for herself and she still wanted to go to law school.
“So I finally applied,” Mount said. “I was accepted to IU School of Law-Indianapolis at the age of 29 just before I turned 30 and away I went back to class with three small children and a whole belly full of excitement and gratitude to be there. I was going to make my future exactly what I wanted it to be.”
In 2010, she earned her Doctor of Jurisprudence and quickly began working for local attorney Jim Voelz. And in 2016, she and her business partner Blake Reed bought their current practice, which has only grown to have three attorneys and a support staff of 11.
Mount began her speech referencing a song by the Avett Brothers called “Head Full of Doubt,” which she said described her journey as she traveled through her own head of doubt. But she said that’s not the full title, as it continues with “Road Full of Promise.”
“Girls, I want you to look around your table, look at the women at your table right now and know every women at that table has doubted themselves somewhere along the way,” Mount said. “But there is always a road full of promise. Just like for you, there was a road full of promise for them. They found their voice, they found their people, together that gave them power and here they all are today with all of you…”
She left girls attending with a challenge. In 10 years, she said she wanted them to call her office and tell her what they did with their voice and what their future is like. That’s a promise Richards Elementary School fourth graders Tasvhi Manthri and Kaylee Mattingly said they’re going to keep.
“I learned that just be yourself and don’t let others tell you what to do,” Manthri said following the luncheon.
“Same,” Mattingly said.
