Our Story
The story of the Partnership for Appalachian Girls’ Education begins with me: a girl growing up in a working-class family in the Western North Carolina mountains. I was a girl with big dreams but limited opportunities.
When I was seventeen years old, and hopelessly naïve about how higher education works, opportunity came knocking at my door. I received an offer of admission to a local two-year college, with a free ride through a combination of scholarships. Off I went on a journey that ended up taking me to Harvard University for a doctorate in education, then back to my native North Carolina soil to found PAGE.
When I look now at the girls who are in PAGE, I see girls who are as gifted and curious about learning as I was. PAGE began in 2010 with a simple idea: give these girls high-quality learning opportunities that emphasize critical and creative thinking, place-based learning, and meaningful engagements with technology. Provide girls with innovative education and supportive mentoring across the critical years of adolescence, so that girls develop the aspirations and high-level skills they need to create new college pathways.
Then watch these girls grow up and become young leaders who can help create a new Appalachia.
This was the vision that inspired PAGE’s founding in 2010, in the beautiful farming community of Spring Creek. The concept underlying PAGE took shape: invest in world-class education that empowers girls as local and global citizens, and you are investing in the future of Appalachia.
Today PAGE serves 75 girls annually at our administrative program site in Marshall, North Carolina. Through our MobilePage strategy, we are also expanding the reach of our programs to other communities in Western North Carolina and Eastern Kentucky. We are exploring new collaborations and future partnerships, so that more girls in Appalachia can experience new ladders of learning and opportunity.
We hope you will join us, in person or virtually, and become part of a PAGE story that continues to evolve.