The Miss Napa County Scholarship competition, a preliminary to the Miss America competition, has returned to Napa but without the support it previously had. We are now hoping we may find a bit of that support from members of the community.
Last year, I was asked by the outgoing Miss California state director to run the event, but at that time, I had not yet completed my first full competition year as a director. While I am the executive director, I come to the work from the field of education (having taught from coast to coast), and I come as someone who has never competed in pageants; I ran track in high school and college. I work full time as a senior education researcher at a nonprofit, and I was still learning my way in this completely volunteer role. Most people don’t realize that the Miss America Organization is spearheaded by volunteers. Most of the work is done in the evenings and on the weekends. But we manage to make it happen.
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This year’s Miss Napa County competition is open, meaning that anyone from the state can compete. This was a way to ensure that we would have enough competitors to run the competition. As it stands, we only have two competitors signed up for the Miss Napa County competition. Part of the deterrent, evident by the comments from the first article, was that the original scholarship amount was only $500. That was the amount that I knew I could handle if we didn’t get any other donations, especially since I’d also have to come up with the funds for the Miss Vallejo/Tri-City’s Teen competition, which is also a new title for me this year.
Since the article ran in the Napa Register, past Miss Napa County titleholders have reached out — elated that I had picked up the title. Within one week of the article, donations from those titleholders came in allowing me to pay for the crowns and sashes, and allowing me to increase the Miss Napa County scholarship to $1,500. I hope this will encourage a few other young ladies to apply to compete. One donor offered to match what had come in. This is so important. I had one young lady in the Miss Vallejo/Tri-City competition back out because of the fees associated with the pageant.
Most of the young ladies enter because it is a scholarship competition, so some of the fees become a deterrent. With that said, we are seeking individual and corporate donors because as part of the Miss Vallejo Scholarship and Research Alliance 501c (3) we hope to provide small stipends for the delegates who do not win, to still implement some portion of their community service initiatives throughout the year. They will be taught components of research and data analysis, and will be expected to present research about the community service initiative in some public forum. In order for this to happen, we need community support. We are hoping that some of the past sponsors of the Miss Napa County competition would consider getting involved again. The past titleholders spoke of wardrobe allowances, hair and make up support, monthly manicurist appointments in addition other things. The last director, Sarah Lopez, even mentioned that in the past, there was storage for the pageant dresses. We hope this post encourages registrants and donations. We can be reached at info@missvallejotricity.org.
