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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - December 16, 2008
Ashley Moorefield Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
December 16, 2008

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Resident Wins Cash Award To Support Mentoring Program For Girls In At-Risk Neighborhoods


(New York, NY, December 16, 2008) - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania resident Ashley Moorefield, 23, is one step closer to fulfilling her dream of creating a better tomorrow for her community. Ashley was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 cash award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support individuals in their work to empower women. She is the ninth recipient of a Hello Tomorrow Fund award in Pennsylvania since the program launched in 2007, and was selected by an expanded panel of judges that now includes Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and actress Phylicia Rashad. Ashley will use her award to support Taking Youth Higher, a mentoring program that focuses on self-esteem, self motivation, and abstinence for teenage girls in the Pittsburgh community.

Although studies show that the rate of teenage pregnancy has decreased overall in recent years, it is still reported that on average, more than 750,000 teenagers become pregnant each year and three out of ten teenage girls become pregnant at least once before the age of 20. In East Liberty, Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas of Pittsburgh, high schools often have daycare facilities to accommodate the growing number of teenage mothers. “Teenage pregnancy has become normal,” says Ashley. Ashley has witnessed the lack of support these young mothers have from their families as very often the baby’s father is not an active role in the mother’s life.

Ashley grew up caring for four younger siblings, as one of eight children, with a step father who was verbally abusive and parents who were addicted to drugs throughout most of her life. Today, her parents are in recovery, and she has begun to rebuild a relationship with them. Ashley recognizes that unfortunately, her family’s situation was not uncommon in the low-income and often violent area of Pittsburgh in which they lived. Ashley credits mentoring as helping her to overcome the challenges she faced. “Three things kept me grounded: God, mentoring, and dance,” Ashley says. With the desire to pay forward the same support she received as a child, Ashley has spent the last few years volunteering as a mentor through various community organizations. Now married and the mother of a 10-month old, Ashley and her husband created Taking Youth Higher and frequently open their home to facilitate the mentoring sessions. She has devoted herself to guiding young women down the path to healthier lifestyle decisions, but has not had the means to take the program to the next level. That is where the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund can help.

Ashley presently provides weekly mentoring sessions to 15 young women ages 12-17 for a period of six months through Taking Youth Higher. Now with the help of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, she can expand the program to include monthly field trips, weekly dance classes, small group sessions, weekly lessons, and writing exercises to help the participants develop short and long term goals towards building a healthy lifestyle. Ashley will also be able to secure a site for her program, which has become too large to facilitate in her home. Through mentoring, Ashley’s goal is to help teenage girls obtain academic success, volunteer in their community, reject negative peer pressure, and make a promise to themselves to “stay beautiful inside and out.”

Ashley’s winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund met the criteria of clearly presenting unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including personal finance expert Suze Orman, actress Phylicia Rashad, Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and experts in business and grantmaking. “She sounds deeply committed to helping young girls keep their dignity and become successful members of their community,” commented judge Carol Kurzig on Ashley’s proposal.

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