Camas High School (CHS) seniors Mia Sugimoto and Sophia Rundle have achieved their goal of reaching girls worldwide by leading over 60 volunteers, writing advice on their blog, and uploading content to a TikTok account with over 80k followers. Their global organization, Girlhood, allows women to submit stories or request advice where submissions are posted on the Girlhood blog.
Like many other teenagers, Mia Sugimoto spent one of her summer nights in a theater this July, enjoying the Barbie movie. By the end, she was in tears. As she walked out of the theater, she realized that although all the girls watching were from different backgrounds, they united over the shared experience of being a woman and immediately called her best friend, Sophia Rundle. The two were compelled to form an organization to connect women worldwide. They wanted to create a space where every girl belonged.
Inspired by the “girly” aesthetic of 2000s blogs, Sugimoto began crafting the Girlhood website. With no prior practice in website design, it was a learning experience. Combined with Rundle’s graphic design skills, the two set up the website within a few days. The next step was to create social media accounts to market the organization.
At first, engagement was low on their Instagram and TikTok pages, with videos only receiving around 2k views daily. However, after three days of consistently posting videos, one video got 8 million views. They have now accumulated a TikTok following of 84.9k followers and an Instagram following of 13.3k. Rundle accredits their quick success on Tiktok because the Girlhood organization is very niche. There currently is nothing else out there like it. CHS Marketing teacher Courtney Sanchez said she has never had students do something to this scale.
“What they’re doing is comparable to an adult working in the social media industry,” Sanchez said.
Their outreach success on social media has allowed them to connect with and help girls worldwide. After gaining popularity on TikTok, many girls wanted to help grow Girlhood and expand the concept. Due to this outpouring of support, they selected volunteers to assist. They received thousands of applications and tediously narrowed the selection to only 60. These generous volunteers now help respond to as many advice submissions as possible – whittling down the Girlhood inbox with over 20k messages.
“There have been so many people just asking to help in any way they can,” Rundle said.
With help from volunteers, Rundle and Sugimoto can now take on more of a managerial role. They review volunteers’ advice and maintain the blog, website, and social media accounts.
Though they have been swamped managing schoolwork and the organization during the fall of their senior year, their passion for furthering the Girlhood mission overrides the stress of it all. They have lofty goals for the future of Girlhood and want to continue reaching as many girls as possible. Knowing the advice blog helps so many girls, Rundle and Sugimoto hope to make the resource available to even more.
The next step for Girlhood is selling merch. They have designed hoodies to sell to Girlhood followers and plan to donate the proceeds to charities supporting women.
Not only has Girlhood impacted girls’ lives worldwide, but also Sugimoto and Rundle’s lives.
“Girls from around the world can come together. It’s a magical thing when that happens,” Sugimoto said.