Kamilla Ponce is a senior at Glendale High School and is the president of the EmpowerHer Club. She was born in Glendale, California, and her hobbies include taking pictures, traveling, driving wherever the wind takes her, going out with friends, writing for the school newspaper, and doing random side quests. Some interesting facts about Kamilla are that she’s bilingual and she’s also double-jointed.
Last year, Kamilla Ponce and Grace Kaloussian both co-founded the EmpowerHer Club because of one of our rival schools. “We saw an account [at Crescenta Valley High School],” Kamilla said. “It’s called FEMPowerment at CV, and then [Grace] came up to me and asked if I wanted to do it.”
It was a jumpstart because Grace wanted to join another club, so Kamilla took over the EmpowerHer Club at GHS. They were both involved with another group on campus called HERd Club, but it eventually disbanded, so they felt they needed to start another club. “I just really wanted to bring back the club, but it was in my freshman year,” Kamilla revealed. “And by the time that I started it again, it was in my junior year. And the president…was difficult to get in contact with.”
Kamilla and Grace both decided to rename the club and make it a space for girls to come and be heard. They started the club halfway through their junior year.
Kamilla’s plan for EmpowerHer Club is to have more hygiene products in the bathrooms, because she knows how it can be a crisis for some people. “So we made a compromise for the bathrooms for other people to access,” she said. This process is still in the works, because it’s difficult to fund projects like these. Kamilla hopes to improve access to feminine products for girls on our campus.
Being the president of the EmpowerHer Club feels like a new world to Kamilla, because she has never taken on a major role on our campus before. “It’s definitely been fun,” she said. “And I like navigating the whole process of my cabinet, because they’re new to it, too.”
The EmpowerHer Club is a great place to make friends. At first, it might seem intimidating to go to club meetings, but it really shouldn’t be.
A big thing that does bother Kamilla is when people take the club as a joke. “I remember my experience at Round Up,” she recalled. “Someone asked, ‘What do they teach you in the club?’ And someone said, ‘Cooking and stuff.’” Actually, the whole point of the group is to provide community service in places like women’s shelters.
One community service opportunity they participated in this year was partnering with the YWCA. They helped with food pantry donations, and people brought in canned foods and other items.
People should join the EmpowerHer Club because they can make friends, do volunteering together, and go to meetings. It is generally a fun club to be a part of.
Other than being president of EmpowerHer Club, Kamilla is also the social media manager for our GHS marching band and the vice president of the Flowers for Seniors Club. She is also a member of the concert band, NHS, CSF and Nitro Crew, and she has been a part of our Explosion staff for two years. Kamilla also takes pictures for the yearbook, and she volunteers at the Pasadena Humane Society, where she is also a dog trainer.
After high school, Kamilla will be attending UC Santa Barbara, where she will major in psychology with a focus on brain science. In the future, she hopes to open her own clinic that incorporates animal therapy.
Something Kamilla will miss most about GHS is her EmpowerHer Club cabinet, but she will also miss her friends and the amazing teachers who have helped her along her journey. “I think my biggest inspiration was definitely Ms. [Kristina] Carbajal, and my music teacher [Ms. Amy Rangel], that isn’t coming back,” she said. She also wants to thank Mr. Rich Gavin and Mr. Jon Livingston for a lot of opportunities that she thought she wouldn’t have had if she hadn’t stepped out of her comfort zone.
