Today we’d like to introduce you to Hilken Mancini and Nora Allen-Wiles.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Nora and I met at the original Rock n Roll Camp for girls in Portland Oregon in 2007. I was volunteering as Assembly Leader/Instructor and she was Interning as the assistant camp coordinator there. When I first met her there in Portland Oregon I thought it was so crazy that she was from Somerville and I was from Jamaica Plain. It was a funny coincidence and we bonded over being from Boston, MA. After that we decided to get lunch before the session ended and we talked about possibly starting a Girls Rock Camp in Boston- but it seemed like a crazy dream. Three years later, when I turned 40, I started to really think about wanting to really start a Girls Rock Camp here, so I reached out to her and she was living in Boston and told me she was thinking the same exact thing that year. She was wearing this button that said “Make it Happen” when we met up. We had the same dream. We met up the week of my 40th birthday and started planning and scheming up what we needed to do to make it really happen. By the summer of 2010 we held our first session at Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain, MA to 40 girls participating! It was a dream come true.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No road is smooth. There are always struggles along the way- whether emotional, physical, financial- but it’s all about the adventure and about getting there- getting to your goal. With Girls Rock Camp it is so much about the Mission of what we are trying to do- to change the way girls and women feel about themselves and all the limiting myths that are put upon us -so it is very emotionally driven and therefore you can push yourself to the limit. It was really exhausting making this happen and Nora and I were feeling it for sure. Having full time jobs and pulling something like this off was no easy task. (Nora worked full time at whole foods and I owned/still own- a vintage clothing store in JP) so we would be working all day and then use any of our free time to do everything else. We would get together in the wee hours of the morning to fill out the non-profit application, get donations or call people for gear till midnight and go pick it up. At one point we had 25 or so women in my kitchen making genre signs and checking gear and bringing gear over so that we could hold a session and it was non-stop. We were all so exhausted by the time it came to run the session, really grass roots and blood sweat and tears style that we could barely pull it off. It was like a little version of a female Harvey’s Milk in my home- but it was so great. We were putting every bit we had – everything of ourselves into it to make it happen. And that felt great, and still does.
It also helps if you are not monetarily driven, and you are patient and can hang in there… you can really make the change that you want to see happen in the world if you are willing to do the work. And we were. And still are.
Anything worth value takes dedication and is going to be harder to accomplish to make it great. In fact the harder the struggle and the more you push yourself- the greater the reward. Also usually because of that, the work is so much more believable, tangible and real. It has an energy to it that people can feel and want a piece of… if it’s too easy it’s usually not that good of a result- and/or it doesn’t last.
Please tell us about Girls Rock Campaign Boston.
Girls Rock Campaign Boston (GRCB) works to eradicate all the limiting myths about music and gender by helping girls speak up, sing out, and make a lot of noise! We offer a volunteer-run summer program for girls aged 8-17.
During each session, girls have the opportunity to form bands, learn how to play an instrument (guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, or vocals), compose an original song and perform live at a local rock venue – all in one week’s time. In addition to the band practices and instrumental lessons, GRCB also provides workshops geared towards self-esteem building and self-expression. We also offer two after-school programs, Club GRCB and GRCB BEATS, and Ladies Rock Camp Boston for women 21 and over.
We have cultivated a supportive community of peers and positive female mentors that encourage and teach girls to be their own heroes, allowing them to think differently about limits that may be placed upon them by our society.
Girls Rock Campaign Boston is a 501(c) 3 non-profit, feminist organization. By making knowledge accessible and providing a safe space for girls and women, GRCB is a key element in bringing about necessary social change in our community.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Nothing. I think that inevitably you make mistakes and think “I guess I could have been smarter and wasted less time figuring that one out”… but you only know that by doing and then learning. I love the way we started this and I still love how we work. I can’t imagine creating it and building it any other way with anyone else. Nora and I were meant to do this and I think we knew deep down how much work it would be to start this, and continue to run it. But we are truly passionate about the mission of this organization and we would never let fear, finances, exhaustion or whatever stumbling block we might run into question our faith in what and how we built GRCB and will continue to. Nothing ever stopped us and it never will.
Pricing:
- all of our programs are either free or on a sliding scale.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://girlsrockboston.org/
- Email: hilken@girlsrockboston.org and nora@girlsrockboston.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grcboston/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/girlsrockcampaignboston/
- Twitter: girlsrockbos
Image Credit:
Jenny Bergman, Kelly Davidson, Michelle Porche, Shasti O’Leary
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