Bolles Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Twyla Ashman was named to the Girls Inc. Board of Directors in June. She joins Bolles Trustee Brittany Groover on the nonprofit organization’s 11-person board. Groover has served since June 2019.

Girls Inc. of Jacksonville serves more than 1,700 girls every day in literacy after-school programs, outreach and summer camps. Its mission is to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold.

“My passion has always been to teach girls how to advocate for what they believe in and make their voices heard. This passion developed early on from my personal experiences in a male-dominated engineering and technology field,” Ashman said. “My transition to the field of education has provided a platform to reach girls at a young age. Girls Inc. provides an extension of that platform to work with girls in their formative years to make healthy decisions that will positively impact their future.”

Bolles and Girls Inc. have been linked in recent months. The organization named Bolles student and STEM advocate Taylor Richardson ’22, and her mother Latonja Richardson, Champion for Girls Honorees during the group’s 4^th Annual Women of Vision Celebration this March. Richardson has embraced a public persona as a girls in STEM advocate and is known internationally for her work. She has raised more than $100,000 in recent years to buy tickets for young girls to see “A Wrinkle in Time” and “Hidden Figures,” fundraising initiatives supported by such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey and director JJ Abrams. She has appeared on magazine covers and has spoken at many STEM-centered events, including the 2017 March for Science in Washington, D.C.

The Girls Inc. event’s keynote speaker wsa Commander Kim M. DaCosta-Azar of the United States Navy. The Women of Vision Honoree was Jan Healy, founder of Renewing Dignity and a former Bolles trustee and past parent.