Girl Up concert to be held this spring

The Girl Up club and its efforts are relatively new to Central. Just last year Girl Up was created as a chapter of the national Girl Up organization by two senior girls.  

The two students became familiar with the organization online and through association with other schools who already had a Girl Up club of their own. The mission of the organization is to fund programs that “give girls an equal chance for education, health, social and economic opportunities, and a life free from violence.”  

With this in mind, the Central club decided to gear their efforts to relevantly aid the women of Omaha. They focus on supporting, empowering and uplifting women in the local community and at Central. Hannah Leslie, the co-president of Central’s Girl Up club explains this further saying, “If we had a concert and there was a girl [preforming] , we would want to go there and support her or [support] the women’s basketball team which is obviously very overshadowed by the boy’s.” 

As a co-president, Hannah hosts club meetings and plans events and activities for members to take part in. The group has previously sold Yuda Bands to fund the education of a girl from Zimbabwe and is currently doing a drive for menstrual products for the Women’s Center for Advancement. But perhaps the most exciting event to take place is the upcoming Girl Up concert. 

The Girl Up concert consists of performances and presentations of various forms of entertainment and the Arts by Central students. This may be musical acts or artwork, and the club hopes to expand its range of performances to poetry and other artistic expressions. Despite popular belief, Girl Up is open to all people, regardless of gender, and encourages males to become allies. Hannah herself reaches out to people to ask them to perform at the concert. “We do have a couple of males that are going to perform as well,” she says.  

The club has high hopes for this year’s concert after the success of last years. Last year’s concert, named Girl Up Palooza, was held in May at OutrSpaces, an art organization in downtown Omaha.  

“The concert brought people from Central’s community and people from the Omaha community together. It was very surprising; we actually had a lot of attendees…we raised over a thousand dollars for the club,” says Hannah. 

This year’s concert will be held at OutrSpaces come early March or early May. New Girl Up T-Shirts will be sold along with stickers and buttons. Concert money is used to host the club and to aid other organizations. Girl Up’s hope for this year’s concert is to use the money raised to donate back to the Girl Up organization so they can work to further their efforts to provide girls with education in second and third world countries. Girl Up meetings are held in room 149 every Monday after school. Anyone is welcome to come if they would like to help the cause and learn more information on upcoming events.