By Lili Sandler, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

Summer is here! It’s time to get outside and enjoy the long hours of sunshine! There are so many ways to explore the outdoors with the Mighty Girls in your life, and in this post we recommend a few of our favorite outdoor toys, games, and gear to consider for your adventures. If you'd like to discover more options beyond our recommendations below, you can also visit A Mighty Girl's extensive Outdoor Play section to learn about a wide range of excellent toys and games for children and teens.

INDEPENDENT ACTIVE PLAY

When it’s time to graduate from a ride-on to a two-wheeler, instead of using the typical training wheels, many studies — and more importantly, parents — agree that the best way for a child to learn to ride her own bike is by first mastering balancing. If your child can run, she is ready to try her own balance running bike with the Strider PREbike! She’ll be whizzing up and down the sidewalk in no time, and developing both pre-bicycling skills and confidence, too!

For more wheel-based fun, check out this cherry blossom skateboard from Punisher Skateboards. All that time on her balancing bike will come in handy as she weaves her way around obstacles and over bumps. This board is 31 inches long, made of Canadian Maple, and is sure to delight girls 6 and older. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Communications Specialist

We've had so many wonderful girl-empowering crowdfunding campaigns shared with us recently that we've decided to share them with our supporters in one post. A few of the projects featured are focused on stories starring Mighty Girls while others are about products designed by girls or women and there are even projects about encouraging literacy and a love of reading. All of them are great options for people in our community who would like to support innovative projects by or about girls and women.

If you know other crowdfunding campaigns that are related to girl empowerment, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Seeking Support: Projects Not At Their Funding Goal

These projects are still seeking funding to meet their minimum goal. For those fundraising on Indiegogo, they will receive partial funding even if they do not hit their goal, but Kickstarter projects receive no funding unless their target is reached.

Lili’s Alphabet Book: Alfabe Kitabim: Nil Navaie created this book to teach her toddler the 29-letter Turkish alphabet, but she’s also hoping to use proceeds from the book sales to support girls’ education in Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of girls still don’t attend school. Funds will go to cover printing costs and fees, as well as 10% to go to girls’ education causes.

Chasing 200: As 16-year-old Kaylin Stewart seeks to become one of the youngest racing drivers to join the 200MPH Club, the aspiring film director/producer is also hoping to make a documentary about her attempt and the other, very rare, women who hold Land Speed Racing records. The majority of the filming will take place during Speed Week, the August event at the Bonneville Salt Flats where drivers can attempt record-breaking speed runs. Funding will go to cover the costs of principal photography, including staff costs and travel expenses, permits, and production insurance. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Communications Specialist

“Tonight love and hate met in St. Louis. And love outnumbered the hate, in poetic thousands. Hate left. But love stayed. + Together, we sang.” -- Lady Gaga on Twitter after a protest outside one of her concerts

While Pride Month is a time to remember how far we have to come in the quest for acceptance of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community, it is also a time to celebrate, because with every year, we come closer to a time when LGBTQ pride will be celebrated universally. In honor of the pride we should all feel in supporting individuality and equality, A Mighty Girl has put together our top ten songs for celebrating living authentic lives.

Although not all of these songs was written with LGBTQ issues in mind, they have all been adopted by the LGBTQ community as expressions of their struggles and their dreams for the future. They provide reassurance that others support the community, whether they identify as LGBTQ or as allies. Most importantly, they remind all of us that, no matter what, we should stand tall and be proud of who we are. Continue reading → Continue reading