Frederick teen Ginny Creager honored for selflessness with Dottie Lamm Award

http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.jsbrightcove.createExperiences();

FREDERICK — When Frederick High School junior Ginny Creager was in second grade, she was bullied.

“It didn’t faze me as much as other people,” Creager, 17, said Tuesday.

But when she saw another girl, Janie, being bullied by the same classmates, Creager couldn’t stand by. She stood up to the bullies, who were teasing Janie that no boy would ever like her because she wore overalls.

“Seeing someone else get hurt, I just couldn’t stand for that anymore,” Creager said.

Creager’s mother, Rhonda, had told her youngest daughter that bullies were trying to make themselves feel better by tearing down other people.

“Really, you have to make fun of her?” Creager recalled saying as she confronted the bullies, who also were girls. “I just made them feel dumb for making fun of her.”

The next day, Janie invited Creager to her birthday party, Creager said.

“It felt so good and so rewarding,” she said. “(Janie) was very grateful for what I had done for her.”

Even though the two lost touch after Janie moved away during middle school, the warm feeling that Creager felt that day has shaped her life. Her main goal, she said, is to help people.

“My mom tells me I have a level of selflessness that is incomparable,” she said. “Everything that I do is some kind of kindness.”

Creager’s desire to help people will be recognized next week, when the Women’s Foundation of Colorado presents her with a Dottie Lamm Award for her leadership and philanthropic spirit. The award recognizes two high school juniors who participated in the Foundation’s Girls Leadership Council from July 29 to Aug. 4 at the University of Denver.

She will be sitting at the former Colorado first lady’s table during the award luncheon, and actress Geena Davis will deliver the keynote address.

“I get goose bumps every time I think about it,” Creager said. “I feel so honored to be chosen for the award.”

About 100 girls from across Colorado applied to be on the Council, according to Denise Delgado, manager of community initiatives and investment for the foundation. Of those, 10 were chosen.

As the girls learned leadership skills, they also learned how to be philanthropists: They were charged with granting $20,000 from the Foundation to two nonprofit organizations dedicated to reducing the dropout rate among girls. The decision-making process included researching the organizations, seeing their presentations and visiting their sites.

Even at the beginning of the week, Creager’s selflessness stood out, Delgado said. She arrived with binders — one for each of the 10 council members — filled with information about the nonprofits they would be considering.

In addition, Creager had knitted gifts for her fellow council members, whom she hadn’t even met, the manager said.

“Ginny has to be the most altruistic, selfless person … I’ve ever met,” Delgado said.

“She will just drop everything for everyone else,” Delgado said. “It came through with flying colors during the program.”

One of the organizations that received a grant, Smart Girls, so impressed Creager that she has joined it. She spent last weekend training to be a mentor for middle school girls to help them stay in school. She will soon be working with students at Coal Ridge Middle School, she said.

In addition, she also is a peer educator for Safe Shelter’s Teens Ending Relationship Abuse program. On Monday, she gave two presentations at Mead High School.

“It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done,” Creager said.

As if those activities — and her three Advanced Placement classes and having a 4.4 grade-point average — aren’t enough, Creager serves on Frederick High’s student council, the St. Vrain Valley School District’s student advisory board and the Frederick Town Youth Commission; she’s the vice president of her school’s National Honor Society and Rachel’s Challenge, which tries to reduce bullying and increase kindness; and she’s the manager of Frederick High’s football and wrestling teams.

Being part of the Girls Leadership Council has changed Creager’s long-term plans.

“Before the program, I had small dreams,” she said. Through the council she’s learned to dream big: “I’d love to become the first female governor of Colorado.

Victoria Camron can be reached at 303-684-5226 or vcamron@times-call.com.