Trenton Area Soroptimists Honor Three Local Women

The Live Your Dream Education and Training Award is about helping women who have faced economic and personal hardships to live their dreams by attaining an education leading to their empowerment, financial stability, and independence. Ashley Jones of Ypsilanti, a single mother of three young children, was selected to be the recipient of the Live Your Dream award.

Ashley is pursuing a social work degree from Eastern Michigan University. Her desire to pursue this career was decided when she received help from a hospital social worker to get financial assistance and other support when her son needed a liver transplant in 2016. Because of his hospitalization and having another child at home at the time, she had to quit her job.

Her mission in social work is to do the same: to help women and children in a hospital setting access needed resources to help them through troubling times. Ashley is currently working thirty-four hours weekly while attending classes and caring for her children. Her hope is to receive her bachelor’s degree in social work in August 2020 and eventually pursue a master’s degree in the same.

The Virginia Wagner Educational Award is given to a woman aspiring to complete a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree to enable her to reach her career goals. Detroit’s Artiesha Powe used to self-diagnose her illness symptoms with web searches. Those early experiences led her to an interest in the health field. She started at Western Michigan University with pre-med courses.

Because of extenuating circumstances, she transferred to Eastern Michigan University where she received a bachelor’s degree in recreational therapy. During her studies there, she also took a job as a nursing assistant at Beaumont Hospital where she experienced the devotion a nurse has to her patients. Artiesha wants to a motivating, trusting, and compassionate force to her patients, so she is attending the nursing program at Davenport University with a current GPA of 3.1 She is also working part time at the hospital. She hopes to graduate in April 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in nursing, and eventually become a nurse practitioner.

The Soroptimist Prime award is exclusive to SI of Trenton Area. High school girls residing in Brownstown, Gibraltar, Grosse Ile, Riverview, Trenton, or Woodhaven are eligible to apply. The Soroptimist of Trenton Area High School Girls’ Award honors young women who make the community and world a better place through volunteer efforts.

Most college graduates don’t have the impressive amount of achievements on their resumes as does the dynamic Soroptimist Prime winner, Trenton High School senior, Mia Moberly. First and foremost are her remarkable accomplishments in leadership skills. Even as a freshman, her sights were set on making the world a better place. Mia and her friends founded Trenton High’s first feminist organization, the Equal Club, to educate and raise awareness of women’s issues.

Mia was instrumental in organizing a student a walkout at her school to City Hall after the Parkland shooting, which resulted in a disciplinary mark on her school record but spurred her on to pursue more civic awareness. Mia is now the state director and founder of the Metro-Detroit Chapter of “March for Our Lives,” a student-led organization that supports legislation to prevent gun violence. In doing this, she has spoken at Amnesty International and other gun violence events, she manages local chapters, organizes events, holds rallies, communicates with the national board, and is even working on a short film project about the impact of gun and domestic violence against women.

This led to joining “Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan,” a youth activist organization that centers on issues in Detroit and its surrounding area like clean water in schools, climate change and gun violence prevention.

Mia shows her political activism by her many experiences with various roles as member, panelist, and public speaker at rallies, demonstrations, and panels for state and local political campaigns, for Amnesty International, “Wear Orange Against Gun Violence,” “Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan,” “Free Minds, Free People,” and “Climate Strike Detroit.” Her participation and interviews have been documented in interviews in the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, and YouTube.

Mia is also Trenton High’s Quiz Bowl captain, French Club vice-president, and JV soccer team captain. Those are just a brief overview of her leadership skills!

Mia has already attended a few academic programs: The Young Women’s Leadership Institute at Barnard College, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development’s “Young Scholars Program.” She was a Joyce Ivy Foundation Summer Scholar full scholarship winner and attended Brown College’s summer program, as well as now having a Joyce Ivy Fellowship.

Mia is well rounded as evidence in her other activities and accomplishments. She is in the National Honor Society, French National Honor Society, Digital Media club, is in marching band, jazz band, is a semi-professional bass guitarist who plays for performances, teaches bass guitar and trombone, plays JV tennis and has been on a travel soccer team, is a four-year academic award winner, and writes a monthly column in the Trenton Trib for Trenton High news.