February 2024: How We Celebrated Black History Month

In This Newsletter:

• Stay Connected With BSLS

• A Note from our Founder:

• What We’ve Been Up To:

• Chapter of The Month

• Don’t Forget:

About | Donate | Get Involved

A Note from our Founder:

BSLS celebrates Black History Month, BHM, by honoring the achievements, influences and legacies of Black Americans. BHM and every month is an opportunity for us to appreciate and recognize so many both near and far including those who have impacted our mission like Coco Jones, Louis Desforges, Jameeka Green Aaron, Marissa Smith, Margaret Francois-Aiyegbusi, Tangela Woodley, and those who continue to inspire us such as Ayo Edibiri, Fannie Lou Hamer, Claudette Colvin, Mary Church Terrell, Dorothy Johnson Vaughn, Mae C Jemison, and Katherine Johnson among so many others. Each year, ASLAH designates a theme to structure what we focus on in this special time, and this year’s focus is African Americans and the Arts. As we look backward to honor our heritage and forward toward a brighter future, we seek to bring strength to those around us both within and outside the arts. 

We are proud to be a home for many Black Trailblazers including our founder and CEO, Aneisha Hughes, who recently received two honors that we wanted to highlight. In 2023, she was invited by the Obama Foundation and Girls Opportunity Alliance to Barack Obama’s Democracy Forum. While there, she got to mix and mingle and spread the word about BSLS with leaders “who are focused on cultivating a healthier discourse, building a more inclusive economy, reinvigorating institutions to encourage active citizenship, and promoting democratic culture around the world” (Obama Foundation). In addition, she was awarded the Outstanding Philanthropic Leader recognition at the 36th Annual Silicon Valley Philanthropy Day. While Aneisha wasn’t able to attend as it conflicted with the previously mentioned event, her mother was there to accept on her behalf and to spread the word with people who are actively making the world a better place for all of us.

What We’ve Been Up To:

In our last email, we mentioned a few goals around fundraising and mentorship. You are our accountability buddy, so we wanted to check in on how all of that went!

• Our new website is on track to launch at the end of this month (fingers crossed).

• We fell a little short of our mentor match goal, but we still have hope, that’s why we are counting on you to help share our program with more Working Professionals and/or BSLS Alumni to mentor our mentees, you can learn more here about mentoring!

• Our awareness goal is exceeding our expectations and going through the roof with an increase in our website traffic, our social media followers & engagement, as well as our membership…Hence the 3 new chapters we welcomed some weeks ago!

As we mentioned earlier, every contribution means the world to us. With that in mind, we wanted to share with you some of the things that your contributions go towards that you might not be thinking of:

• Support our operations that keep our mission running.

• Collaborate with experts on a new website that will help us continue to serve our mission and vision (check it out now, still at bigsisterlittlesister.org).

• Create transformative experiences like the Hear Our Voice and 7 Ways Master Class programs including their take-home materials and ensure these experiences are always free to our members

• Providing our Ready to Wear collection that can take our members from the dorm to the office or class any day.

• Scale the impact of our informative programs for our members.

Everything we listed above is just a drop in the bucket of what we have going on. Please support us via a donation that would help us continue to grow BSLS.

Chapter of The Month

Tuskegee University was founded in 1881 and has sustained as one of our nation’s great schools. Founded with Dr. Booker T. Washington as its first and only teacher, the university has risen from its land grant status with only thirty students in its first class to forging its history as the only HBCU to have its campus designated as a national historical landmark and ranked #4 HBCU in the nation, landing in the top five for many years running and graduating classes of over 500 students. Now, our chapter there is creating its own history with its brilliant president, Haileigh Trainer, wrapping up her term this coming spring. In the meantime, they are helping their broader community by hosting a session all about how to academically succeed and start the year with strength!

Don’t Forget:

Members! We want to hear from you! Please fill out our form so we can highlight any exciting updates in your life whether that be a new job, an addition to a family, or anything in between in our next newsletter.

Don’t forget, donating isn’t the only way to get involved with us. You can:

• Adopt a chapter today → not sure which chapter, no worries, we have 19 national campuses to choose from, click here to see which chapter 

• Sponsor one of our 2024 programs and/or events

• Mentor a student member today by signing up here

• Join Our National Team → We are currently seeking a Program Chair and Co-Chair, Volunteer Chair and Co-Chair, & Special Events Chair and Co-Chair. Send your resume to [email protected] with the role you’d like to fill 

Each of these ways provides much-needed support and can change the lives of our members! Contact us today to learn more ways and answer any questions you may have at [email protected] 

Thank you for making our month worth celebrating! Please keep up with everything we’ve been up to in between our newsletters on our social media!