EDINA, Minn. — It's likely not something you think most 12 to 15-year-olds would spend $5,000 on. A group of Edina girls are using that pot of money to help more than 100 other girls who play sports at a sold-out event Monday.
There’s nine of them and they got together to come up with one grand idea.
“We went to this event with about 100 adults and we were just like mingling,” Lila Emerson said.
The young ladies were mingling among city leaders and the Edina Community Foundation after pitching their plan to put on a girls sports summit.
“We knew that we want to put on some event that was more like JV, junior varsity board specific that was impacting girls our age,” Joely Emerson said.
It paid off.
They got the big check, and you might even say it's because they used a skill learned playing sports.
”Feeling ready, feeling ready to put your 100% to absolutely lay the hammer down and give it your all and the power that has,” Lilly Green said.
The group is part of the non-profit Her Next Play. The organization says 65% of 2017 Fortune's most powerful women played sports competitively, and 94% of surveyed women executives participated in sports. So investing in these young girls makes sense.
“You could take the lessons you learn from sports and put them into your life or your future career as well,” said Claire Wegmann-Krider.
“There are just so many girls that drop out of sports and don’t get to experience these lessons and so we really want to teach girls to stay in sports and how valuable those lessons really are,” said Emerson.
And for others, the reason to host something like this is simple.
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“It’s super healthy for you, and I feel like that’s super important when you’re young to get lots of exercise,” Olivia Wegmann-Krider said.
The Edina Girls Sports Summit is at Life Time Sport from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. It includes women in sports, like athletes, commentators, even a sports psychologist. The group is expecting 140 girls to attend and hopes to make it an annual event to reach all of the metro next year.