35 min
Empowering Voices: From Pain to Power with Jennifer Jones of Beauty Marks for Girls Class E Podcast
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- Entrepreneurship
Join us in this inspiring episode of the Class E Podcast as we dive into the transformative journey of Jennifer Jones, the founder of Beauty Marks for Girls, a nonprofit mentoring program for girls whose mothers are incarcerated. Jennifer shares her personal story, the origins of Beauty Marks for Girls, and the profound impact it has on the lives of young girls facing similar challenges. From vulnerability and forgiveness to the power of empathy, Jennifer's insights and experiences offer valuable lessons for all. Tune in to discover how one woman turned her pain into power and is now empowering the next generation of resilient young women.
Guest website: https://beautymarks4girls.com/
Host: Mary Sturgill
Producer: Isabella Martinez '24
Transcript of the Show
MARY: Hi, everyone, welcome to the Class E Podcast. I'm your host, Mary Sturgill. This is the podcast that's brought to you through a partnership between the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Communications Studies Department here at Furman University. This week I've been so excited all this week for this guest because you are going to be excited after you hear this conversation. You will want to.. don't walk, you will want to run to an event where she is listed as the speaker and after we have this conversation, you're gonna know exactly why I said that. Jennifer Jones, welcome to the show.
JENNIFER: Thank you Mary for having me. I'm excited.
MARY: Yeah. I'm excited for you to be here because Jennifer did a speech at one of the women's events that I went to. What was it last spring or something like that? Yeah. And I was just sitting in the audience and I was…I probably shouldn't admit this, but I was just crying. Because I was so touched and so inspired by her story. So I wanted to have her on to, you know, do the same for you guys. Right? So Jennifer, let's talk a little bit about your story. You've started a nonprofit, we're gonna get to that. But you had a lot, of course, leading up to that and were really motivated to start it in the first place. Can you tell us a little bit about your personal story?
JENNIFER: So Beauty Marks for Girls…It did derive from a lived experience. We mentor girls whose mothers are incarcerated in South Carolina. And so I wanted to make sure that no young lady has to experience the pain of living with an incarcerated mother by herself. I am the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother, who really has turned my pain into my power.
MARY: Yeah. I love that.
JENNIFER: And I plan to do the same for the young ladies throughout our program. So parental incarceration, I like to say that it hurts, but still in those broken areas, you can find that is where your power lies. Normally I’m asked about Beauty Marks, where do we get that name from? And that's what it means… Every scar tells a story. And those stories not only deserve, Mary, to be told, but they deserve to be heard.
MARY: Oh absolutely. And telling and hearing are two different things.
JENNIFER: Absolutely.
MARY: So you overcame some of the hardships that you experienced and you graduated from Columbia with a Fine Arts degree.
JENNIFER: That’s right. Columbia College.
MARY: Yeah, yeah. So tell us how you kind of have parlayed that into Beauty Marks for Girls.
JENNIFER: I think it's beautiful that it just, it matched perfectly for me because when I entered into college, arts was something that I wanted to focus on and what it did for me, the arts, was it allowed me to have this blank canvas, right? So Jennifer you can create whatever it is, no matter what you're going through, this is your canvas. So it was an outlet for me. I like to say that education saved my life, because it allowed me to use my pain as a way… as an outlet to grow not just personally but also from an impactful way throughout the state. So yeah.
MARY: I love the idea of the blank canvas really being a symbol for what these girls a
Join us in this inspiring episode of the Class E Podcast as we dive into the transformative journey of Jennifer Jones, the founder of Beauty Marks for Girls, a nonprofit mentoring program for girls whose mothers are incarcerated. Jennifer shares her personal story, the origins of Beauty Marks for Girls, and the profound impact it has on the lives of young girls facing similar challenges. From vulnerability and forgiveness to the power of empathy, Jennifer's insights and experiences offer valuable lessons for all. Tune in to discover how one woman turned her pain into power and is now empowering the next generation of resilient young women.
Guest website: https://beautymarks4girls.com/
Host: Mary Sturgill
Producer: Isabella Martinez '24
Transcript of the Show
MARY: Hi, everyone, welcome to the Class E Podcast. I'm your host, Mary Sturgill. This is the podcast that's brought to you through a partnership between the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Communications Studies Department here at Furman University. This week I've been so excited all this week for this guest because you are going to be excited after you hear this conversation. You will want to.. don't walk, you will want to run to an event where she is listed as the speaker and after we have this conversation, you're gonna know exactly why I said that. Jennifer Jones, welcome to the show.
JENNIFER: Thank you Mary for having me. I'm excited.
MARY: Yeah. I'm excited for you to be here because Jennifer did a speech at one of the women's events that I went to. What was it last spring or something like that? Yeah. And I was just sitting in the audience and I was…I probably shouldn't admit this, but I was just crying. Because I was so touched and so inspired by her story. So I wanted to have her on to, you know, do the same for you guys. Right? So Jennifer, let's talk a little bit about your story. You've started a nonprofit, we're gonna get to that. But you had a lot, of course, leading up to that and were really motivated to start it in the first place. Can you tell us a little bit about your personal story?
JENNIFER: So Beauty Marks for Girls…It did derive from a lived experience. We mentor girls whose mothers are incarcerated in South Carolina. And so I wanted to make sure that no young lady has to experience the pain of living with an incarcerated mother by herself. I am the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother, who really has turned my pain into my power.
MARY: Yeah. I love that.
JENNIFER: And I plan to do the same for the young ladies throughout our program. So parental incarceration, I like to say that it hurts, but still in those broken areas, you can find that is where your power lies. Normally I’m asked about Beauty Marks, where do we get that name from? And that's what it means… Every scar tells a story. And those stories not only deserve, Mary, to be told, but they deserve to be heard.
MARY: Oh absolutely. And telling and hearing are two different things.
JENNIFER: Absolutely.
MARY: So you overcame some of the hardships that you experienced and you graduated from Columbia with a Fine Arts degree.
JENNIFER: That’s right. Columbia College.
MARY: Yeah, yeah. So tell us how you kind of have parlayed that into Beauty Marks for Girls.
JENNIFER: I think it's beautiful that it just, it matched perfectly for me because when I entered into college, arts was something that I wanted to focus on and what it did for me, the arts, was it allowed me to have this blank canvas, right? So Jennifer you can create whatever it is, no matter what you're going through, this is your canvas. So it was an outlet for me. I like to say that education saved my life, because it allowed me to use my pain as a way… as an outlet to grow not just personally but also from an impactful way throughout the state. So yeah.
MARY: I love the idea of the blank canvas really being a symbol for what these girls a
35 min