The school day is over, the buses are leaving, and a crowd of girls are taking over a biology classroom. They are the members of the Girls Support Girls Club.

Sophomore Kate Morgan has been among the crowd for its first few meetings.

“It’s a club where… girls and women can… empower each other and talk about things that… they, like, might feel pressure not to talk about with others and just, it’s really… welcoming, and… supportive of other girls,” Morgan said.

Morgan is one of the many students who went to the new club looking for a sense of community.

“It’s always just so nice to be part of, like, a group of people that… build you up and not tear you down,” Morgan said.

In a school as large as Wando, a supportive group like this can sometimes be difficult to find.

“There’s… so much bullying here,” Morgan said, “it’s just… really nice to have… a place where… girls can just, like, be comfortable with each other… just like, [have] welcoming and happiness and comfort.”

With the amount of girls attending, it is evident that the new club will be around for a long time.

“I hope that we can… be welcomed a lot…. and allow it to prosper and grow,” Morgan said.

Sophomores Lily Bevier and Laine Edwards are co-presidents of the Girls Support Girls Club, and they believe in providing girls with a tight community that they might lack elsewhere.

“Not every girl has, like, a big group of girls to… talk to and do activities with,” Bevier said.

Although the support of Wando girls is paramount in the club’s purpose, they do have another goal.

“[Lily and I] met in seventh grade, and we always wanted to start, like, a club… where we could help people in need. And we’re both, like… activism-y. So we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s just do something we love’. So we made the club because no one else was doing it,” Edwards said.

The co-presidents seek to utilize their community of girls in helping the women of the Lowcountry.

“[The purpose is] to raise money for homeless and women’s shelters around the Charleston area and to create a… safe place for the girls of Wando,” Bevier said, “We… eat snacks. We plan fundraisers, plan different events to try and include all of Wando in… helping our community.”

Many clubs look to support local charities, but Girls Support Girls is Wando’s first that focuses its efforts towards women’s shelters.

“The Bounce Back Incorporated homeless shelter is the first shelter that we’re helping right now,” Bevier said.

Bounce Back Incorporated is located in North Charleston, and it aims to allow those who are in difficult and desperate places to get back on their feet. They help the homeless, drug addicts, struggling teens, and other people in need.

With no personal reward other than the community they have created, Edwards and Bevier have founded the Girls Support Girls Club, and therefore set out on their journey to serve the girls of Wando and beyond.

Girls Support Girls meets every other Tuesday in biology teacher Gina Chesmore’s room, and all Wando girls are invited.

“[We] just help people in need who, like, are in the hardest points of your life,” Edwards said, “sometimes that’s high school, and sometimes that’s… homelessness. You never really know what a person’s going through.”