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H.O.P.E. Teen Board Members
Maude Leclerc
My name is Maude Leclerc and I am a sophomore at American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida. Last year I created AHEDAW (American Heritage Eating Disorders Awareness Week) at my school to promote awareness of eating disorders and it's devastating impact particularly on teens. I am very proud to say that this event will take place each year. As a teen board member of H.O.P.E., I think it is important that I help to educate my peers on the importance of body acceptance. The week -long event consisted of daily conferences on the signs and symptoms of eating disorders as well as available resources in our community. I had a kiosk set up in our school library with pamphlets and other documentation available to the students and had the opportunity to do a live segment on the CBS 4 News , here in South Florida and also publish a news article in south Florida's Sun Sentinel to promote this cause and H.O.P.E.
This year was successful as well and we had the chance to speak to every student in 7th-12th grade about eating disorders awareness and body acceptance. I ended the week on a high note by inviting Allison Kreiger (Miss Florida 2006 and founder of H.O.P.E.) to speak to approximately 2000 students about her own personal experiences in dealing with eating disorders, and share her message of hope. During our awareness week, I organized a jeans drive to emphasize the message "Be comfortable in your genes, wear jeans that fit the true you."
"Different genes wear different jeans" encouraged students to donate their uncomfortable jeans which we then donated to other non-profit organizations in need. I think it's great to be able to help raise awareness for this terrible illness and at the same time help my community.
Thank you so much to American Heritage for all of their support and encouragement and to CBS4 News for once again helping to create awareness for our cause. This is something I intend to keep doing for a very long time.
Click the picture to read about Maude's trip to NY to spread her message of HOPE!
On Friday,February 27, 2009, Maude was on CBS 4 for the second year in a row
Click here to watch her interview
 
   
On Wednesday, April 30,2008, Maude was on CBS 4 in Miami! Great job Maude!
Click here to watch her interview
Kirsten Coleman- Miss St. Petersburg Outstanding Teen 2009
Wow! What an exciting charity! Each year my organization "Puppy Love" chooses an awareness campaign to participate in. While Puppy Love's main goal is to increase the awareness of therapy dogs and their rehabilitative benefits, I feel that youth involvement in any worthy cause is very important. This year, H.O.P.E.'s Pageant Pants caught my eye. You see in my small community there is a Little Miss Sumter County Pageant held each year. What more fitting way to increase the awareness of the H.O.P.E. organization than to have a Pageant Pant Denim Drive during the pageant. So I enlisted the help of all the contestants. This allowed me the time to talk with each of the young ladies and give them information on H.O.P.E and the efforts of Ms. Kreiger. The pageant contestants were able to collect over 75 pairs of jeans, with Ms. Cori Lynn Sovercool being named the "Jean Queen" bringing in 45 pair all by herself. Way to go Cori Lynn! With the rest of the community contributions, I was able to collect over 270 pair of jeans for this worthy cause. I had a blast participating with this drive and talking with all of the young ladies of my community. Next year I hope to add the other divisions of the local pageant with the denim drive, in an attempt to reach and educate more of the young ladies about H.O.P.E. and Pageant Pants.
Kelly Redoutey- Miss Silver Springs 2008
This year as being part of the H.O.P.E. teen board I have particpated in the campaign Pageant Pants. I collected jeans from different organizations including Little Women Service Club and Too Your Health Spa and Fitness Center. I was able to donate these jeans to the Boy's Ranch and I had the opporunity to speak with Allison to the boys about eating disorders. I also donated other jeans to the Salvation Army in my local area. I also had the opporunity to speak to the young women of the Little Women Service club.
 
Jillian Tapper- Miss Miami's Outstanding Teen 2008
I have collected over 300 pairs of jeans and have donated them to them to the Pageant Pants compaign. I motivated and spoke with many of my twirling teammates and friends at school about the H.O.P.E. organization and how you can't change your Genes but you can change your JEANS. They helped reach the goal with donating over 300 pairs of their very own gentely worn or new jeans to the drive. As a H.O.P.E. teen board member I am looking forward to being more active towards the organization because I truly feel that Pageant Pants does make a difference in lives of others.
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