"When I was a teenager, I didn't often feel seen or deserved to take a space, especially in skateboarding," Kendra Sebelius says.
"So, what I like to bring to this organization, particularly, is my own experience so that I can talk to teens about their own mental strife that they may be going through so that we can address that and that they feel safe and seen in that space."
Sebelius is a volunteer at Exposure Skate, a California nonprofit dedicated to empowering women, girls, trans, and nonbinary individuals through skateboarding and teaching compassion through service, People reports.
The group was founded in 2012 after Olympian Amelia Brodka made a documentary that highlighted the lack of opportunity for women in the sport.
At the time, women's divisions had been cut from major skate events and the best female skateboarders in the world lacked support, Brodka says.
Exposure Skate provides safe spaces for these groups, opportunities for them to grow personally and in the sport, and mental health tools and services.
"Therefore, it is important for Exposure to weave proven social emotional learning practices into its curriculum and programming to ensure that participants can manage their mental wellbeing," the group says.
A customized collection of grant news from foundations and the federal government from around the Web.
In the world of social enterprises, failure is a cringe-worthy moment nobody wants to talk about. But, social entrepreneurs can benefit from their failures.