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"Mahj-ing" a Difference: A Mother-Daughter Mahjong event

“Mah-jing” a Difference, a mother-daughter Mahjong event will be on May 3 from 2-4 PM CDT at the Levite Jewish Community Center. Join us for an afternoon of fun, connection, and friendly competition, benefitting GirlSpring! Open to girls ages 12 and up and moms, friends, sisters, aunts, etc. from beginners to seasoned pros.

Tickets are $50 per person/ $200 per table

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Yes, Chef! Wonder Women of Hospitality

The post February 7 | Yes, Chef! Wonder Women of Hospitality for Girls 11-14 appeared first on GirlSpring.

GIRLSPRING WINTER PARTY | January 29, 2026

2026 is GirlSpring’s 15th Anniversary!

Our annual Winter Party honors the vision of our founder, Jane Stephens Comer, and our mission of empowering girls! At this year’s Winter Party, we’ll celebrate the achievements of GirlSpring’s earliest Springboarders, who are now finished with college and making their mark in the world. We hope you will join us in celebrating these future leaders! As always, the event will include great food, music, and cocktails. Our venue this year, the Clubhouse on Highland, was built in 1910, and served as a home for the Alabama Federation of Women Club’s 3rd District for over 60 years. It is one of the finest examples of Arts and Crafts style in Birmingham.

Learn more here: https://gsfoundersparty.swell.gives/

RSVP- Get Your Ticket Now!

THANKS TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS

SILVER LEVEL

The post GIRLSPRING WINTER PARTY | January 29, 2026 appeared first on GirlSpring.

What music genre are you?

Ever wondered what music genre fits your vibe? Find out now!

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“Ghetto Roots”

They call it ghetto.
Pallets stacked into beds, lots of pig on the grill,
A hustle stretched thin just to make a meal.
But lemme take you back,
Way back to when our ancestors’ backs broke
Under a sun that didn’t love us either.

Pallets?
The wood scraps they tossed aside,
Used to carry cotton, sugar, and blood,
We turned into survival.
Beds from nothing ‘cause they gave us nothing.
Is it ghetto, or is it resilience?
Y’all mock the crib frame but not the system
That left us with splinters for a foundation.

Swine?
You wrinkle your nose at chitterlings,
Call ’em “chitlins,”
But who handed us the scraps?
Slave masters took the loins, the ribs, the ham,
Left intestines for the “less than,”
But we seasoned ‘em with soul and called it dinner.
Now y’all call it “soul food” at your overpriced bistros.
Who’s ghetto now?

Cornrows?
You call them ghetto, unprofessional, a fad.
But cornrows were blueprints for freedom.
We braided maps into our hair
Rows to show the way to the Underground Railroad.
We wove grains of rice into the plaits,
Because starvation wasn’t an option on the road to liberation.
What you call a hairstyle was a survival tool,
A resistance art form.
And now you wear it for clout,
Erase the roots but keep the look.
Who’s really ghetto?

The way we talk?
You laugh at the way we flip words,
Turn “ain’t” into an anthem,
Slang into a melody that flows like the rivers they crossed us over.
But did you know our tongue was stripped bare?
Forced to trade Yoruba for yes sir.
Plantation whispers became survival codes,
AAVE is rebellion embedded in rhythm.
“Ghetto” is what you call it;
We call it speaking in the key of freedom.
Y’all mock it, then remix it,
Put our dialect on TV, then say it’s yours.

Even love,
They call it hood love,
Laugh at how we yell out nicknames,
How we kiss with fire and hold on tight,
But our love is a miracle.
During slavery, they tore apart Black families,
Sold husbands to one state, wives to another.
We couldn’t legally marry,
So we jumped brooms and built bonds no whip could break.
They called us breeders;
We called it survival.
They punished us for loving at all.
Now they call our affection too loud,
But we’ve been loud for every ancestor
Who was forced to love in silence.

They made us ghetto.
Ripped us from lands where we were kings and queens,
Shoved us into projects,
Cracked our schools, and broke our communities.
They feared our brilliance,
So they tried to bury it.
But still, we rise,
Still, we flip struggle into culture.

You call us ghetto.
I call us genius.
We’ve turned struggle into style,
Pain into poetry,
Scraps into sustenance.
We spin survival into an art form,
Alchemy of the oppressed.
So keep your labels;
We’ll keep our ways, our culture, and our soul.

Learn more about the Be Empowered poetry contest here.

The post Ghetto Roots, Be Empowered Poetry Contest appeared first on GirlSpring.

Born of Soil, Sun, Soiled Sun

In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Raw and reaching, pulled from the hollow hush.
Of earth, I came through the jagged jaws of the splintered stone, through fissures coughing up the breath of an everlasting joyous sun.
My skin was pressed from the caverns who guided the underground, damp and rich.
Stitched, with roots that stretched, alive.
The rivers ran, keeping my spirit true, the main source of my youth.
My fingertips kissed by the blue hush of dawn.
And when the wind curled against my back, it did not howl—it sang.
A hymn that felt like love.
I was Soil.

In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Sunlight pooled in the valleys of my skin,
gold dripping, spilling, making me something more than stone and soil.
Trees grew thick at my spine, arms outstretched, aiming to graze the heights of heaven.
Clouds stitched themselves into the corners of my mind,
lazy and laughing, rolling figurative shadows over the grass.
The rivers carried my secrets downstream, delivered them to the sea,
where the waves cradled them, quiet and knowing.
I was everything and endless.
I was Sun.

In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Soon time and I started a game of tag, and I never seemed to win.
Hungry and hurried they came,
touch peeled the green from my ribs,
cut open my breath and left me gasping in the dark.
The trees, once outstretched, bowed their heads in surrender.
Smoke curled in my lungs, immensely thick and choking,
They split my once powerful bones, carved them hollow,
pulled light from my veins and called it theirs.
They built themselves ladders, to climb through life,
while the very soul of my body was stripped.
A new distorted hymn I did not know.
I was Soiled.

In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Though fractured and sore, I will not accept ruin.
I press seed to soil, whisper to the roots,
teach the wind my name again.
They cut me open, but they did not take it all.
My breath still lingers in the mist,
my veins still rush with the echo of rivers.
Even as my body aches under their weight,
I gather what remains—scattered light, quiet green, the hush of rain.
I will stitch myself whole again.
I will grow it from the dust.
Not as I was, but as I will be.
I will not be a Soiled Sun.

Check out more poetry here!

The post Born of Soil, Sun, Soiled Sun | Be Empowered Poetry Contest appeared first on GirlSpring.

I Define I’m Not the Definition

I control my fate; my fate doesn’t control me.
I am planting my positivity seeds everywhere I go.
I define; I’m not the definition.
I follow my intuition so I’m not in a position where
Things define me, and I’m not defining.
I’m learning to not be a people pleaser and abuse
My leisure.
I’m learning to be independent, not dependent,
Nor co-dependent on someone else for my
Happiness.
I define; I’m not the definition.

I’m not letting anyone steal my shine or my thunder
From underneath my nose
I’m in control.
I define; I’m not the definition.
I have to be tough when no one will be tough for me.
I have enough wisdom, knowledge, and understanding,
To know when someone’s being too demanding.
It’s time I started listening to inner me, know my worth,
And put myself first.

It’s time I grew up and don’t let people pull my strings,
And look out for myself and my surroundings.
I define, I am not the definition,
But I do take recognition for my mind because I am
Kind, brilliant, resilient,
And overall, I am killing it.
Because I define, I am not the definition.

Learn more about the Be Empowered Poetry Contest here.

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