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The girls at Girls Inc. of Hamblen County learned that beauty comes in all forms.

Inspired by the Dove Brands Selfie Project, Girls Inc.’s older girls recently started a series of conversations and activities focused on self-esteem, body confidence and body acceptance.

The grand finale of the project was a “Love My Selfie” gallery show of natural selfies taken by the girls and staff. The gallery was held Tuesday afternoon at the Girls Inc. facility on Sulphur Springs Road.

Executive Director Lise Bender explained the purposes of the project.

“This is a project based on the Dove Brands self-esteem work,” Bender said. “It’s one in which the girls and the staff have taken pictures of themselves completely without makeup.”

Bender said that each girl in the club filled out post-it notes and put comments about each girl on the respective picture. The girls went through the line where the selfies were displayed and tell each other what they think is beautiful about each girl.

Classroom Facilitator Taylor Bare, a social work student at East Tennessee State University, said that it was an “honor” to be part of the project.

“It really helped me heal a part of myself that I wished I had heard this information when I was a girl,” Bare said. “Even for the younger girls, we wanted to plant the seed that beauty can be redefined. That freckles are natural, blemishes are natural, all of those things are natural and we shouldn’t feel ashamed by comparing ourselves to these unrealistic, unattainable beauty standards.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all for beauty,” Bare said. “We’re all different, beautiful and unique in our own way. It’s been an honor to watch their confidence blossom as we got more educated along the way. Something I love about being able to influence the young minds of the future women of America is being able to right those wrongs, fallacies and lies we were told growing up about beauty because they’re hurtful and they hurt our self-esteem. I can help plant the seed for them to feel more confident, it makes it worth it.”

Bare will receive her masters in Social Work at ETSU this year.

“We’ve been lucky enough to have her this year,” Bender said. “She’s been amazing.”

Program Director Misty Graham Stapleton encouraged discussion about what each girl found beautiful about themselves and others.

“This project was planted in my brain a couple of years ago,” she said. “We were finally able to bring it to fruition at Girls Inc. of Hamblen County. What we’ve done over the last several weeks, our two oldest groups, grades four and older, have been meeting in their selfie project sessions and had discussions about self-esteem, body positivity, body confidence. We talked to them about what they are seeing on social media, what’s real, what’s not real, to help them see the difference. Hopefully, they will be able to make those good choices with their social media sites.”

Stapleton encouraged the girls to take selfies, or photos taken with their phones, of themselves without any kind of makeup.

“(The goal was) to help each girl to understand that in our natural selves, we’re beautiful,” Stapleton said. “Each girl was able to take their selfie home to help cement in their minds that they are beautiful.”

This project was also made possible by L.A. Orio and the PC Stark Fund.