Polished Pebbles: Mentoring program helps young girls promote themselves and their products

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A popular mentoring program is empowering local students to sell not only themselves on success, but also their potential products.

Polishing Pebbles' goal is to help young girls to live their best lives.

"It's bringing from the '90s that old 'take your daughters to work day' and bringing it to communities of girls whose parents cannot be in the type of careers that they can afford to bring them to work," said Kelly Fair, the founder of Polished Pebbles.

For the past eleven years, the organization has been in the schools, helping young girls with communication skills they'll need to be successful in the workplace and life.

"When you look at the girls we are serving in Black and Brown communities, we are having to close what I call the 'hope gap," Fair said.

To bridge that gap, the program brings in all kinds of professionals to share with the girls, providing them both practical lessons and inspiration starting at age seven.

"It's the same experience that some of the great role models that they see in the media. They've come from the same communities, they've come from the same experiences that has made them really powerful women," said Fair.

Part of the program is this mother and daughter "Shark Tank" competition, which allows them to put some of those new skills to the test.

"Some had videos, some had created props. Some had prototypes of their products already. We were all amazed," said Fair.

Fair is now sharing that empowerment message in a new book called "Every Girl is a CEO."

"You go to school, you work an after-school job, you do hair and lashes on the side to make money. You're taking care of getting younger siblings dressed and walking them to school. That's chief executive officer behavior," Fair said.

The main message she wants the girls to know is: "You've had the power all along."

The locally-based Polished Pebbles program mentors girls in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, as well as Texas and North Carolina.

for more information about the program or how you can get involved, visit the Polished Pebbles website.