Hey, all!

Do you remember last year when I talked about getting my passport for the first time as a way of promoting the Passport Party Project? For those of you that may have forgotten, the Passporty Party Project strives to enlighten young girls about international travel at a young age and to give them the information, tools and money that they need to obtain their passports. There have been parties in cities all over the U.S. thus far, and I was honored to participate in the New York City party with girls from Prep for Prep, a program pretty special to my heart (I’m an alum!).

The New York PPP party was flush with volunteers, and it was nice to connect with a few bloggers that I hadn’t met before.

Ann of Water Wine Travel setting up for the party

I have to give Tracey Friley, the founder of the Passport Party Project, so much credit. I loved the girls’ work areas, gift bags and little perks.

Check out the gold airplane ring. I wore mine the whole time. Bling!

We made these super cool travel vision boards. I have not a crafty bone in my body, but there is something so relaxing about cutting up magazines and pasting things. You should totally try it some time. I used to wonder why people held craft parties, but I think I might actually get it now.

 Some of the girls hard at work

Here’s my vision board. Maybe not the best one, but I had lots of fun making it. If you’re wondering, the images are supposed to reflect my desire to travel to (Southeast) Asia and West Africa, the two areas of the world that I’m most interested in exploring next.

Here are a couple of my favorite vision boards the girls made.

We also had the little ladies dress up and take pics. The girls did a great job looking absolutely fabulous!

Read the captions on the signs. They’re great!

I had to jump in and make it old school.

While the girls had a cupcake eating contest, we volunteers actually got to savor the cupcakes Tracey bougth from Empire Cake. While I have my own favorite cupcakes in the the city, I have to say that these were pretty darn impressive, especially the travel related edible discs on the top. The chocolate ones are actually masking German chocolate cake filling. Unreal…

 I was the lucky one who got to put the flags in the cupcakes.

In addition to all of the fun, we, the blogger volunteers, shared our travel stories and perspectives. The girls talked a lot about the places they wanted to go, and Tracey made sure that they knew as much about the passport process as possible. They also got passport pics to take home. Bases covered.

I hope the girls were inspired. I know I was. PPP reminded me again of how important it is to inspire young women at any age and how their curiosity and intelligence can motivate me in return. Thanks to the little ladies of Prep for Prep!

Here’s more information about the Passport Party Project.