Beigette Gill certainly knows about girls and their journeys. Fernwood Cove, the camp in Harrison that Beigette owns and directs with her husband, Jim, provides hundreds of girls each summer with the opportunity for connection, challenge and personal growth. Now Beigette is also sharing her passion for and commitment to high school girls’ development by guiding participants in the Olympia Snow Women’s Leadership Institute.

The Institute, serving high school girls since 2015, was founded by former Maine Senator Olympia Snowe “to raise the confidence and aspirations of high school girls by helping them develop the skills needed to be leaders in their lives, families, careers, and communities.” This mission statement is complemented by the program’s vision to be a national model for enabling high school girls to “recognize their gifts” and become future leaders. The leadership institute program is divided into three themes. In tenth grade the girls explore “My Values,” followed by “My Voice” in 11^th grade and “My Vision” in their senior year.

It’s right up Beigette’s alley.

Along with a “Co-OLA” (Olympia Leader Advisor), Beigette began working with a group of high sophomores during the 2024-25 academic year at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford. The co-advisors meet monthly with the same six girls and will follow them through their senior year.

Beigette’s involvement was spurred by happenstance about five years ago, she says. “My car was getting repaired at Moody’s in Auburn and on the coffee table was a newsletter about Olympia Snowe’s Women’s Leadership Institute. I picked it up and what stood out was the core curriculum of the program.” The three themes of the program “were so well put together,” Beigette said.

“How integral I thought that would be for the girls who are in high school and figuring life out and what direction to go and who they are.”

At that time, Beigette says, she didn’t have the time to dedicate to the program but “years later, I looked more seriously.”

At its outset, the program served 45 girls in seven schools serving Androscoggin County. Today, the Institute’s website states, nearly 600 girls in 38 schools – across all of Maine’s 16 counties – participate in the program.

Beigette says her camp work and her role as an OLA have a reciprocal relationship, “which I love.” Her vast skillset facilitating conversations among groups of different sizes comes into play, as does her expertise teaching smaller groups in activities at camp.

“I feel like all of those experiences help me be present and bring listening skills to the table,” she said.

Beigette says that the curriculum, which has been in use for nearly 11 years, is “very well developed.” Each month the OLAs receive a facilitated guide, and Beigette meets with her co-OLA to decide what sections each will handle. “They also provide a Zoom prior to the monthly meeting to go over the curriculum.”

The OLAs include women from various career paths as well as women who have retired, Beigette says. Teachers nominate students, known as “OLs,” who they believe will both benefit from and add to the program, she says. Students make a three-year commitment to the program and can earn both academic badges and university credit.

At the leadership institute’s annual Fall Forum, which was held in Bangor this fall (on the same day as the Migis Meet-Up!), all the OLs in the program gathered with OLAs for an event that “spearheads the year ahead.” It included conversations about careers, networking, and navigating job searches, including the opportunity to practice interviewing techniques, Beigette says.

“What I love about it is it’s truly working on introspective skills,” Beigette said.

“It’s a gift [to OLs] to explore themselves, recognize that people are there to support them, and have an institute to be connected to,” Beigette says. “Once an Olympia Leader always an Olympia Leader.

And it’s a gift to six of those OLs to work with Beigette Gill.