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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - March 31, 2009
Eileen Farley Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
March 31, 2009

Sanford, North Carolina Resident Wins Cash Award To Create Women's History Curriculum For High School Girls


(New York, NY, March 31, 2009) – Sanford, North Carolina resident Eileen Farley, is one step closer to fulfilling her dream of creating a better tomorrow for her community. Eileen 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 third recipient of a Hello Tomorrow Fund award in North Carolina since the program launched in 2007, and was selected by an expanded panel of judges that includes Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and actress Phylicia Rashad. Eileen will use her award to integrate female luminaries throughout history into the Senior Seminar curriculum at Western Harnett High School as a tool to empower young girls.

In the rural community which surrounds Sanford, North Carolina, many leadership roles such as government figures and business owners are filled by men. In Sanford’s Harnett County public school system, it is important to teachers to encourage their female students to pursue their dreams and do not want the lack of women community leaders to discourage them from doing so. Eileen and her fellow teachers have begun to recognize that many students lack guidance and need motivation to make proactive decisions about their future. As educators, they feel the greatest impact they can make on their students lives is in the classroom.

Eileen has been teaching at Western Harnett High School in Sanford, North Carolina for six years. Growing up, Eileen was an avid runner, but could not run on the cross country track team for her school, as girls were not allowed. “To be told at a young age that you can’t do something is frustrating, and can really be discouraging,” says Eileen. For this reason, Eileen has built many close relationships with her students and acts as a mentor to them. Eileen sees how important mentoring is for girls in their teen years. Now having completed a marathon at the age of 45, many of Eileen’s students view her as a role model who inspires them to not give up on their big ideas for the future. Eileen believes that learning about, and from, women who have achieved great success in their professional fields is a way to empower young women to dream bigger and reach higher. She has yearned to integrate special curriculum into her Senior Seminar class, but the budget is limited. That is what inspired her to apply for the Hello Tomorrow Fund award.

With help from the Hello Tomorrow Fund, Eileen will be able to create a multi-functional educational lesson on women who have historically empowered other women, such as Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and even Oprah Winfrey. The curriculum will reach 75 girls, ranging from 16 to 19 years of age. She will utilize female guest speakers, college professors, and a Boston marathon runner. The funds will be used to purchase book sets, reference books, DVDs on great women in history, and a laptop and digital video camera for the girls to utilize when creating their final senior project. Eileen is confident that after learning about how women have overcome many obstacles to succeed throughout history, these girls will be aware of the opportunities which are available to them and strive to succeed in their own lives. “It’s never too late to teach children that there are things they can overcome,” says Eileen.

Eileen’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. “Eileen has proposed a way to locally inspire girls to do anything they are capable of,” commented Lynn Stekas on Eileen’s proposal. “These high school girls are lucky to have her in their community!”

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