Sophia Magnanini 0:00
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Sophia Magnanini 0:32
Hello, 88.1 WKNC, Raleigh. The song you just heard was house of mango by surf ninja three and I am Sophia Magnani, your host. You are listening to Oak city move today, we are joined by very special guest, Stacey Donoghue
, co founder and executive director of stronger together. First off, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to come and speak with me and we can jump right into it. So to start off, for those who may not be familiar, could you explain what Stronger Together is, and how would you describe your mission?
Speaker 1 1:02
Ah,
Stacey Donoghue 1:02
Ah, well, first, thanks Sophia, so much for having us today. This is, this is a lot of fun. As you ask about, you know, what is stronger together? All about
Stacey Donoghue 1:13
the our mission is that we're trying to teach girls how to stick together no matter how different they are, and basically rise above mean girl stereotypes that are associated with us, you know, drama and gossip and judgment and manipulation and all the all the many things.
Stacey Donoghue 1:34
And the way that we try to do that is we try to instill a mindset of networking and encouragement among girls and women, but we try to instill that mindset over the course of eight years with young girls that start with us in the fifth grade until they graduate from high school.
Stacey Donoghue 1:55
And we just when I say, we do that organically. It's really they we have a variety of focuses and activities that give the girls opportunities to come from all these different backgrounds and work together to learn something or accomplish something. So in a nutshell, that's what we're doing over here.
Sophia Magnanini 2:17
Yeah, that's amazing, and also just very important, because as women, we've all kind of lived through it, especially in the earlier stages of our life, being pinned up against one another, going through that quote, unquote girl drama, but that you guys are giving an opportunity to show this doesn't have to be competitive. We can all work together and build off of one another's strengths and weaknesses. So that's just really amazing. And
Stacey Donoghue 2:39
yeah, thank you. I mean, like one, one thing Sophia, that, you know, we have to keep our eyes on as women, is the fact that, you know, I think it was a couple of years ago the World Economic Forum came out and shared that we're on track for women in the United States to catch up with men in terms of pay and promotions in 208 years, and if you look at women of color, that it's an even longer stretch. So So yeah, we've got some work to do. So we we'd be a lot better off if we kind of stuck together.
Sophia Magnanini 3:17
I totally agree. And speaking of like, the roots of stronger together. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to create stronger together? Was there a particular moment or like experience that made you realize this kind of organization was needed in the community?
Stacey Donoghue 3:33
Yeah, so, okay, so you asked about my background. I am
Stacey Donoghue 3:40
I studied at NC State. I studied civil engineering. And then after that, went over to Chapel Hill, I know, and got an MBA there, and went on to work in a corporate environment for a while with a fortune 500 and then stopped doing that, started my own business and sold it and and somehow ended up, you know, like starting starting a nonprofit.
Stacey Donoghue 4:11
I think that that background, even though a nonprofit, wasn't really in my, you know, on my radar, I think that my background, if I'm honest, really contributed to
Stacey Donoghue 4:24
to where to the fact that I had an interest in this. You know, at the time that I was at NC State in engineering, there were one, maybe two, two girls in my class with me,
Stacey Donoghue 4:38
and then I went on and I was in, you know, working for a large corporation for about a decade. And basically, you know, what I came to see there, you know, was that I kind of reached a point where I obviously wasn't going to progress a lot further. I mean, the reality was that, you.
Stacey Donoghue 5:00
Everybody who was above me at that point was, you know, a white male in his 40s, and they all played golf together, and I was never going to be a part of that club. So I was kind of used to being in situations where,
Stacey Donoghue 5:15
you know, where I was,
Stacey Donoghue 5:18
I was, you know, not part of a part of the clique, part of the club, part of the progression, part of the elevation. You know,
Stacey Donoghue 5:27
so stronger together. When you asked about Was there a particular moment we are going to be eight years old this summer, and Dr vashana Rami and myself are besties. In fact, I just saw her this morning. She's my sister in all things of life, but she's an oncologist and I
Stacey Donoghue 5:49
so she's not involved with our programming now, but she was, she's, she's absolutely a co founder that was there at the start with the concept and putting all this together. And I think Sophia, what really like prompted us, you know, I always tell people that it was sort of a trifecta of events that led us to create stronger together. We had a situation where, you know, one of our friends had a daughter who received a nasty birthday card she was six years old from another girl, and it said, I don't like you, but Happy Birthday anyway. And we thought, wow, that's really that takes a lot of confidence to send that out to somebody you know, and so young. And that was quickly, it seemed, followed by a situation where we had
Stacey Donoghue 6:39
race based hate crime that happened here in Durham to a restaurant owner, a woman, and conversely with her, we were able to see how her collection of girlfriends just kind of rallied around her during that time and turn something in to a positive reaction to it, as opposed to any number of other reactions that she could have had.
Stacey Donoghue 7:04
And I guess the third piece that kind of pushed us toward putting Stronger Together together was that the we just were sort of sensing. I mean, this was back in late 2016 early 2017 we were just kind of sensing like a shift in society where where things that were typically negatively stereotypical were potentially going to be embraced or maybe even celebrated. So if we knew we already had this stereotype for all of us, girls and women,
Stacey Donoghue 7:43
were there going to be things happening in society that could pit us against one another even more, right? So that was it going to become even more important that we had each other's backs and so put all that together. And, you know, there we were
Stacey Donoghue 8:01
sending in our, you know, application to the IRS for a 501, c3, designation, yeah, so that's, that's kind of how we got our start.
Sophia Magnanini 8:10
Oh, that's really cool. And I agree, growing up seeing that shift you were talking about, and where things that are seeing a lot of girls, including myself, getting bullied for or made fun of, or certain things, and then now it's really been an embracement and joining together and feeling a lot more womanhood and connection, which is just amazing that you guys really being in like these programs, the girls that you guys have is probably just an amazing experience. And
Stacey Donoghue 8:37
all these boys have a club, right? All these men, they have a club, and we need a club too. Like, if you walk into a coffee shop, it doesn't matter if you know the girls that are in there, or what they're wearing or what they're doing, like, it should be an automatic thing. You make eye contact with them, and you're like, I got you. Something crazy happens in here. I got you. Like, we need a club,
Sophia Magnanini 8:59
exactly.
Sophia Magnanini 9:01
And that leads in because Stronger Together goes beyond mentorship, and it's leadership, sisterhood, immunity. And could you speak a little bit more on what you guys do in the programs to build that unity in sisterhood?
Stacey Donoghue 9:14
Yes. So from a mentoring perspective, we have, like many, many layers of mentoring that happen, you know, we'll have the kids themselves, like I said, they're in the fifth through the 12th grade. So we have something called Words of wisdom, where every year will put they it could be this elaborate, you know, scrapbook, or it could be a play, or it could be, you know, some posters. But what they'll do is they'll tell the group who's in the grade below them. Okay, I just finished with sixth grade. Here's what you can expect, and they do that at every level. So we're teaching them to start looking out for one another early on, and then above and beyond that, we have special groups of high school students.
Stacey Donoghue 9:59
That work with our younger kids. Of course, we have group leaders that work with the kids themselves. We have special parts of our program that require one on one mentors, like helping students getting ready for college and doing their common app and their essay development and stuff, so they'll have a one on one mentor for that. Or we have students that don't have opportunities for extracurricular learning, so we get grants that pay for that, and in the course of that, we're also aligning them, one on one, with went with mentors. So that mentoring is is just a key, key part of what we do
Sophia Magnanini 10:39
That's awesome, because you know that all these girls are definitely taking what they're learning from you guys and putting it into the real world also, and just creating a ripple effect, which is just amazing, especially since you guys do the fifth grade through 12th grade, which I think is very important, like pivotal time in a girl's life, I know where they're building all these foundations, And you guys are just making it easier and smoother and helping them realize, hey, like these girls got me, like, I have people that I can fall back on if anything happens, yeah, which is just awesome.
Stacey Donoghue 11:12
Yeah, yeah. It's a cool thing to see progress. And I will say, you know, I think you mentioned leadership, but you know, as far as that goes, like we we absolutely are, are building leaders with these kids. There's certain parts of our program that are run exclusively by the students that whether the student leadership teams,
Stacey Donoghue 11:38
and you know, we've gotten enough time under our belts now that we're able to see things like I'll use Maddie as as an example, one example. But you know, she's been with us for eight years and been a leader in various capacities within our program. Right now, this summer, she just graduated high school, so now she's like a summer intern for us, and in the fall, she is going to be a group leader herself for a group of fifth graders who are just starting out. And so she's giving back to her community. She's choosing to do that through our program, and she's an incredible, incredible leader. And I'm excited that I feel like we have some small part of something to do with that. You know,
Sophia Magnanini 12:22
yeah, that's amazing, just because so many girls that are in the programs are probably wanting to become those pro like, be more a part of it. And then it's just this cycle we were creating all these wonderful, strong women, and then they're also, like, passing down their this just, it's really sweet to think about. And I wanted to ask, What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that the girls face today? I know we're saying we're discussing some of them earlier, but but like, socially and emotionally, do you see any kind of themes with the girls that you work with?
Stacey Donoghue 12:54
Yeah, for sure. I think that. I think social media isn't probably helping us, because that's such an easy place for us to be unkind to one another, and especially at the ages that we work with, and middle grade and high school, that's when we're maybe the most vulnerable to some some of the things that we see online. So, you know, we have a summer camp coming up, and that'll be like some of the sessions that we have, putting a focus on that, and trying to help the girls get their way, you know, make their way through that.
Stacey Donoghue 13:30
I mean, there's many things like, I think that one of the things that you know, maybe now, in the in the society and the environment that we're in, we're a little bit siloed, right? We're becoming more divisive. And so maybe what we do in our program is because we're bringing so many girls together from different backgrounds, cultures, socio economics, what we're doing is the reverse of that. We're encouraging. You know, we are very intentional about bringing all different kinds of girls together for a long period of time, where they see each other consistently, and helping them to have that open mind about interfacing and understanding and getting to know people who are outside of their orbit, who maybe they wouldn't typically meet in the course of their lives. So
Stacey Donoghue 14:24
I do think that that is that's a challenge just of the times that we're in. I think, I think another thing is that, whether it's real or perceived, wherever you may fall out on, that there is some sense that women's progress and rights are maybe being diminished as opposed to expanded right now, and you know. So what that means for a program like ours is that, you know, knowledge is power, so we need to be out there helping the girls to understand the different things that are happening and happening in different systems.
Stacey Donoghue 15:00
Films, whether it's financial or social democracy. You know, how does it work? We just took a group of kids to the North Carolina legislature last week to sit in on a session, to have some one on one conversations with North Carolina legislatures, and to really help them understand things like, how does redistricting impact? You know, my world and my family and friends and my community. What does that really mean? So that's that's a big part of what we have to do is bring that, bring that knowledge,
Stacey Donoghue 15:34
and that, I think, is definitely a challenge for for today and where we are.
Sophia Magnanini 15:39
Yeah, I totally agree. I feel like in this day and age, like you were saying with social media and with all the things that are happening around in like government and just laws being changed, it is really important to let the girls know that they do have that knowledge is power, and at the end of the day, they can take this knowledge and help themselves, as well as help everyone around them. And it also kind of makes them feel a little bit little bit more stable with who they are, just in themselves you're talking about, since they're in schools. Do you work closely with any local schools or families or like other organizations to expand your reach and resources?
Stacey Donoghue 16:16
We work with very closely with the Durham public schools, for example, counselors or for a literacy part of our program, we work with librarians and ELA teachers. I mentioned North Carolina Central at the start, where Maddie is headed to school. They have been a tremendous partner for us since the beginning. In fact, in addition to them, I mean, we, we have work and we have volunteers with all of the all
Stacey Donoghue 16:48
of the colleges that come to us. So we're really lucky to sit where we do and benefit from that. Durham Parks and Recreation, the public libraries, many, many small businesses help us with things. We have some corporate partners that have been with us a minute. We are definitely looking to expand that and and seek some deeper partnerships, corporately or with entities like the universities.
Stacey Donoghue 17:18
But yeah, partnerships are a key part of why we've been able to accomplish anything that we have.
Sophia Magnanini 17:24
It. It takes a lot to create what you guys have, and just knowing that so many other there's so many, so much collaboration within it, is something also very important, probably for the girls to see as well. Or I wanted to ask you, what does it mean for you to be on the other side, helping lead and support these young girls.
Stacey Donoghue 17:43
I mean, you know, I never would have guessed like when I was your age, like I never would have imagined that this would be something that I was doing, and yet it's like one of the most phenomenal parts of my life that I've ever had, you know,
Stacey Donoghue 17:58
to be able to
Stacey Donoghue 18:00
get to know these girls, their families, to be honest. We have, we have work that also involves, for instance, we have a core group of girls that are nominated to our program for those eight years, and we probably have maybe a little over 100 of them, but we have about another 300 kids in the community who that same concept of like uniting them, bringing them together so they can hear one another's voices. We do that through different interests. Like it's, it could be the Durham book club, that's our program, or it could be innovators, which is a STEM program that we that we have, but at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do, is bring these kids together so they can get to learn more about one another. So just to be able to see that happening,
Stacey Donoghue 18:52
you know, and to see to see those girls become leaders in our program and in the community, it's a it's a cool thing to watch. So I feel very privileged and humbled that I kind of have a front row seat to that. So for me, personally, it's, it's pretty incredible. I'm very lucky.
Sophia Magnanini 19:10
No, I bet what you're doing is just amazing completely, and I feel like very underappreciated, under recognized, even though you're not doing this for the recognition. But at the same time, it's just awesome, little hidden heroes. But are there any specific moments, I know this is kind of on the spot, but any specific moments with your like, during your time at stronger together, that really you're like, This is what I'm doing it for, like this. This is what our mission is to. Supposed to be.
Stacey Donoghue 19:38
So many moments, like, a million things are popping in my head with that question, but, you know, I'll just tell you a moment that happened. I guess it was last year. We have a participation contest in our program, and all of the groups, which the groups are by grade, they compete against each other because they know at our summer camp we're going to announce the win.
Stacey Donoghue 20:00
Or based on how many points they all got. And so this group, they won, they were, I think, at the time, in the sixth grade. So they won a weekend trip to the beach, right? And so I'm there's a little caravan of cars taking them to the beach, and we, we get to the beach, and we're on that that road, you know, that's right where the ocean is, and we're trying to find where we're going to stay. And in my car, I had just a whole mix of kids. Again, I had a child that I had picked up from a low income housing situation. You know, family really struggles. But I also had a child in the car who maybe came from a family that was a little more well resourced and and things like that. And the whole time we're driving down that beach road, Sophia, the little girl from
Stacey Donoghue 20:54
low income housing, she was behind me, and she was like, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Look at these. I can't, I've never seen a house like this. I've This is incredible. And we pull into our place that we're going to be stay in, which was not on the beach, it was a little off of it, right? And we pull into our place, and all the girls, I thought all of the girls, had piled out of the car, and I get out of my I'm exhausted, right? They've been driving me crazy, like and I get out of my driver's side, and it's like, I'm tackled, because this girl has just wrapped her arms around me, and she starts crying, and she said, I have never done anything like this. I've never been to a place like this. I'm here with all these girls. I can't believe it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Miss Stacy. This is going to be such a great time. And around the corner of the back of my car was this other child, a child who did come from, you know, not a super wealthy family, but a family that could, you know, if she wanted to take piano lessons, she could take them, you know. And she she saw this happening, and the rest of the weekend, those two girls were inseparable, right? And to me, that was a moment that I didn't plan, I didn't see coming, but I think that really speaks to what our program is about. We offer the kids opportunities. We offer them those opportunities together, and we are trying to help them organically, see who they all are and that they're all wonderful, and that they all bring something incredible. So I have a lot of stories, but that's just the one that popped in my head
Sophia Magnanini 22:39
that is so sweet. That is just and that must have been so satisfying, not satisfying, but just a very heartfelt moment for you to see everything. It's not even like you had to do anything yourself. It's just what you guys have been teaching them. It's just paying off in so many ways. And that's, that's really amazing. That's, yeah, that's really sweet,
Stacey Donoghue 22:59
yeah, yeah. That's what I mean, a front row seat to stuff like that. It's like, going to a show and not knowing what the performance is going to be, but like, it's great, you know, it's, it's, it's really, really cool.
Sophia Magnanini 23:12
That's an amazing way to describe it, too. I was just about to say, how can our listeners get involved with stronger together? Are there any volunteer opportunities, events, campaigns
Stacey Donoghue 23:21
yeah, you know, there's a couple of different levels that I wanted to just sort of talk through, because I, I imagine you have a lot of students listening, but I imagine you also may have some staff and some NC State folks that are, you Know, administratively or or educators, or what have you.
Stacey Donoghue 23:43
One of the things that we
Stacey Donoghue 23:45
are focused on is diversification of how we get our revenue, just because of the changes with grants and that kind of funding. And
Stacey Donoghue 23:56
so we're trying to make sure that we find other ways to stay in business. And so because we are doing so many different things, whether it's something with STEM or literacy or higher education, anti racism, positive mental health, extracurricular learning, these are all things that we have programming in. You know we are we are always on the lookout for
Stacey Donoghue 24:24
entities or corporations that that would be excited about the work we're doing and would say, hey, you know, we want to hammer out, like a long term partnership with you all. You have this STEM program called innovators. You know that that dovetails with the work that we do. So what could that look like, and how could we help you to build that part of your program such that it can be a revenue generator for you and you can tap into the skills and resources that we can offer. That kind of partnership
Stacey Donoghue 24:56
would be incredible, and we really are working on trying to grow.
Stacey Donoghue 25:00
That from a student perspective, we have lots of students that work with us in various capacities.
Stacey Donoghue 25:09
You know, I would always say to visit our volunteer page, strongher together.org/volunteer,
Stacey Donoghue 25:17
or volunteer match is a great place to find our current needs right now, today, if you've got some NC State students who wouldn't be opposed to a trek to the Durham area every four to six weeks, on a weekend, usually in the afternoon, we're looking for group leaders that would be excited to co lead groups of girls, 10 to 12 girls for activities on the weekends that could be anything from like a community service project to ice cream in the park to bowling to hearing from some amazing community leader. So we are on the lookout for group leaders, if somebody would be excited about that, and we provide transportation, I should say like that. Those are other than the our program being eight years old. A really unique thing about us is that it's entirely free. So like, kids are in our program the whole time, and they don't pay for anything. And we also help with transportation, because a lot of kids have limitations with that. So what that means is that we have a driver pool. Of course, we do background checks and DMV checks on all of these people that I'm mentioning. So there is some administrative stuff for onboarding and child safety and what have you. But you know, if there's, if there's some students that say, Hey, I would, I would be up for, like, helping to get some kids somewhere. The driver thing is something that we can pay a little bit to help. You know, two of the folks that help us in that way, but right now, today, as of this summer, those are a couple of needs that we have that we you know, we'd be excited to meet you and talk more about,
Sophia Magnanini 27:03
Oh, awesome. I feel like I might also try and get in there.
Stacey Donoghue 27:07
Come on over.
Stacey Donoghue 27:09
Yeah, yeah,
Sophia Magnanini 27:10
that's awesome. And finally, where can people find you online or follow along with the amazing work?
Stacey Donoghue 27:18
Yeah, so on social. We're strong her together. So it's strong H, E, R together.
Stacey Donoghue 27:27
That's a great way to see what's up with us.
Stacey Donoghue 27:30
And then, of course, our website is strong, her together.org. So either one of those ways is fantastic
Sophia Magnanini 27:38
As we come up on the end of our chat, I just wanted to thank you again for coming in and chatting with me about stronger together and all that you guys do for the community and just girls, in general, young impressionable women. And it's just really amazing work which you guys are doing, and it's really important in this time and age I feel and it's just helping, helping young girls know their worth extremely important and just amazing.
Stacey Donoghue 28:02
Yeah, thank you, Sophia. This was, this was a lot of fun. I appreciate you. It's so cool that you all are doing this. Oh, yeah, of course.
Sophia Magnanini 28:09
Um, thank you all for listening to Oak city move once again, I'm your host, Sophia Magnani, and if you're interested in listening to this episode again or past episodes of the show, you can go to Wk nc.org/podcast,
Sophia Magnanini 28:20
Make sure to tune in to our show every other Monday on WKNC at 8.1 FM, Raleigh. Have a Great day. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
