On The Line
Will you pick up?
Every day, a girl hears dozens of voices telling her who she is, and the loudest one is often her own inner critic. This Giving Hearts Day, give her the voices she needs most: a mentor, a friend, and the truth that she is loved. Her confidence is on the line. Will you pick up?
Listen for a minute.
Picture a girl in fourth grade on an ordinary Tuesday.
Before school, someone tells her to hurry up. On the bus, a friend says her shoes look weird. In class, she raises her hand, gets the answer wrong, and hears a laugh from the back row. At lunch, she isn't sure where to sit. On a screen after school, everyone looks like they have it figured out. And underneath all of it, quieter but never really gone, is a voice that sounds a lot like her own: See? You're not good at this. Don't try next time.
None of it is dramatic. That's the point. It's just a normal day, and by bedtime she has heard dozens of voices telling her who she is, what she's worth, and where she belongs.
Most of those voices aren't trying to hurt her. But they're loud, they're constant, and at eight, nine, or ten years old, she doesn't yet have a way to sort the true ones from the rest.
That's why BIO Girls exists. Not to make the world quieter, because we can't. To make sure the right voices come through clear enough for her to hear them.
The loudest voice in the room.
One season, during the first session of BIO Girls, we asked girls what they hoped to learn. And their answers were honest in a way that stopped us. "To like myself more." "That I'm good enough." See for yourself.
These are girls in elementary school. They're still losing teeth and learning basic math, and they're already wondering whether they measure up.
That question doesn't come from nowhere. Girls in grades 2–6 are at the age when they start comparing, noticing who's invited and who isn't, and turning outside comments into inside beliefs. The inner critic voice learns fast. It picks up every stray comment and plays it back on repeat.
Left alone, that voice starts taking root. She stops raising her hand. She skips the tryout. She decides she's "not a running person," or "not a math person," or not the kind of girl people save a seat for. Small decisions, made at nine, that can quietly shape the next ten years.
We can't take the critic away. Nobody can. But we can make sure it isn't the loudest voice on the line.
What a BIO Girls season sounds like.
A BIO Girls season is built on purpose to surround her with new voices, week after week, until they're familiar enough to trust. Across ~120 sites in North Dakota, Minnesota, and beyond, that happens through the people around her and the faith at the heart of what we teach. So, what does a season of BIO Girls sound like? It sounds like:
Her site director, speaking truth.
Lessons are part of every week. Our site directors teach the BIO Girls curriculum, and the lessons are designed to give girls words for the things they're feeling and tools for turning their inner critic into a cheerleader.
This upcoming season, girls will experience lessons like Learning From Failure and Progress Over Perfection and put tools into action, such as weekly mantras, cognitive reframing, and calming strategies.
BIO Girls isn't only encouragement. It's a curriculum, taught by site directors, with a plan and protective factor behind every lesson. The heart in the delivery of these messages to our girls is real, and so is the outcome from the teachings.
Her mentor, calling out her uniqueness.
Then there's her mentor: an adult who shows up every single session and knows her name, her favorite activity, and the thing she's nervous about next week.
A mentor doesn't fix anything. She notices. She says, "I saw you try that" when nobody else did. She runs next to the girl who wants to quit and doesn't let her feel alone in wanting to. Over a season, a mentor's voice becomes one a girl can call up on her own, in the hallway, at the free-throw line, or during a hard night at home.
The girl next to her, encouraging her.
And then there are the other BIO Girls. This might be the most powerful voice of all, because it says the thing a critic never will: I think that too.
When girls hear another girl say she gets nervous, or doesn't like how she looks some days, or worries no one will talk to her, something loosens. The doubt she thought was only hers turns out to be something everyone carries. And once she knows she isn't the only one, she isn't alone with it anymore.
And the voice that was there first.
BIO Girls is rooted in faith, and it shapes everything we teach. Before a mentor ever learns her name or a fellow BIO Girl saves her a spot, there's a truth that was spoken over her first: she was made on purpose, she is deeply loved by God, and she is never alone.
That truth is the steadiest voice she'll ever have, and it's the one the critic can't argue with. It's also why our mentors show up the way they do. Faith isn’t a lesson or a page number during the season. It’s a voice always on the line.
The voice that becomes hers.
Here's what we're really after. The site director, the mentor, and the girl next to her aren't meant to be voices she needs forever. They're meant to teach her a new one.
Week by week, she starts to sound different. She says "I can do hard things" before the hill instead of after it. She tells a friend, "You've got this," and notices she believes it about herself, too. When the inner critic speaks up, and it will, there's finally something to answer it with.
You can hear the moment it clicks at the end of the season. She has trained for weeks to reach the finish line, and when she gets there, every other participant is there waiting. Her mentor is cheering. Her family is cheering. And somewhere in there, so is she.
That's the voice we want her to carry into middle school, into the tryout she almost skipped and the hand she almost didn't raise. Not because the world got quieter, but because she knows which voice to listen to.
She knows who she is. She knows she's enough. She knows she's not alone.
Who gets to hear it?
Every girl deserves a season like that. And at BIO Girls, we make certain they can.
When Berlin, a mom in Bismarck raising four girls, first heard about BIO Girls, two thoughts came right away: the cost, and whether there would be room for all four. "I don't want to pick and choose which child gets to be involved," she told us.
She didn't have to. Because of donors, all four girls started their season together, each with her own mentor and her own moment at the finish line. "No one is left out," Berlin said. "That reflects Christ to me." Later she added, "I'm so thankful. There's no way I could have afforded all four girls to go. It's changing their lives." Watch Berlin’s story here.
That's what financial assistance makes possible at BIO Girls. It's the reason the girl who most needs to hear the right voices doesn't miss out because of a financial barrier.
Donors are a voice on her line too, even if she never learns your name. Every time a season is full of girls who couldn't have come otherwise, she's hearing from you: “We believe in you, and we've got your back.”
Be a voice she hears.
On Thursday, February 11, it's Giving Hearts Day. For 24 hours, it’s a day that brings magical impact to nonprofits all across our region. It’s a day to be a giving heart.
This spring, a girl somewhere in our region will walk into her first BIO Girls session. She'll bring the voices she's been hearing all year, including her own inner critic. What she hears next depends on whether there's a site director to teach the lesson, a mentor to learn her name, and a fellow BIO Girl who says, hey, I think that sometimes, too.
Your gift makes sure she hears them. And by the end of the season, she'll be the one cheering for the girl beside her. And it’ll be her own voice that she hears as her cheerleader.
Pick up the line for her. Be a voice she hears.
