Today, for the 11th day of the "Women's History Month" project, I would like to introduce this beautiful and brave young woman
Meet Mikaela Pellerin, 17, student and Miss Maine High School America 2022
Owner of the podcast "BRAVE x EMPOWER."
For the entirety of her seventeen years of life, Mikaela Pellerin has grown up in the town of Gorham, Maine. Growing up in a smaller town has given her a great sense of community and is why she feels it’s important to give back to the town that raised her.
Currently, Mikaela is a junior at Gorham High School. This past Fall she was inducted into the National Honor Society based on scholarship, service, leadership, and character. As an aspiring pediatrician, Mikaela works hard in school and has finished with Final Grades of all As in standard, honors, advanced, and AP classes for her entire high school career thus far. In the Spring of 2021, she was nominated for the Congress of Future Medical Leaders Award of Excellence for her outstanding academic achievement, leadership potential, and determination to serve humanity in the field of medicine. Shortly after that recognition, she was awarded the Gorham High School Academic Award in Health Education. In addition, Mikaela chooses to spend some of her free time immersing herself in other educational opportunities such as being an active member in both History Club and Pre-Med Club.
Mikaela is Miss Maine High School America 2022. She was awarded this title on December 28th, 2021, and was presented with a $96,000 scholarship to Hollins University. Being a state titleholder is a big responsibility. She is expected to attend events, participate in mandatory community service, advocate for causes she values and run social media pages.This June she will represent Maine down in Little Rock, Arkansas while competing for the national title.
Mikaela has a variety of different interests ranging from arts to athletics. Over her lifetime she’s been involved in many different extracurricular activities. At age 6 she started taking classical piano lessons and continued for 7 years. At age 11 she began dancing and has been trained in 9 different styles of dance. As a freshman in high school, she joined her high school’s competitive indoor volleyball team. She then went on to play in Saco as a member of the Maine Junior Olympic Club Team as a middle-hitter. In her past three years of high school here’s a list of all the clubs she’s been involved in: GHS Key Club International (Editor), Interact Club, History Club, Pre-Med Club, Dream Factory Club, Mentor for 2021 GHS Unified Basketball Team, Member of the National Honor Society and assistant teacher for the Adopt-A-Classroom Program. At age 15 Mikaela became a published journalist after earning a 3-year internship for the Gorham Times newspaper. Her articles have been published online and in print 5 times in the past two years. She hopes to one day publish her own book.
On January 9th, 2022 Mikaela started her own podcast called BRAVE x EMPOWER. BRAVE x EMPOWER discusses gender inequality and bullying in STEM. Within two weeks of being out, it was published internationally on Spotify and Apple, both of which are music and podcast streaming platforms. Mikaela is scheduling guest speakers to come on her podcast to share their experiences with bullying and STEM. She hopes her podcast will provide women with resources to combat bullying and inspire young girls to follow their passions in STEM.
Mikaela was a competitive dancer for two years on the Atlantic Dance Arts performance team. She’s been competitively trained in ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, acro, contemporary, and musical theater dance. While competing, she earned many awards including 1st place at Dancers INC 2018 Nationals on her solo and 1st place teen duo/trio at Headliners 2019 Nationals in NYC. Regionally she’s won 1st place on her solos many times and has received 3 Special Judges Awards recognizing her technique, emotions, and charisma. In 2019, when she was just 14 years old, she was also nominated for the Student Choreographer of the Year Award for her lyrical solo.
One of the biggest challenges Mikaela has faced throughout her life was suffering a serious set of injuries to her knee during volleyball. This traumatic event marked the official end of her dance and volleyball careers. During her long and strenuous recovery, Mikaela found pageantry. What made her interested in pageantry was the platform it would give her to truly make a difference within her community. Mikaela made it her goal to be successful in pageantry and to make a mark on the world. In February of 2021, Mikaela signed up for her first pageant despite her inability to walk without a serious limp. She wasn’t sure how or even if she would be healed and ready to compete but that didn’t stop her from trying. After lots of hard work in physical therapy, less than 4 months later Mikaela was able to walk on stage in 6” heels. She finished in the top 11 in the Miss Maine Teen USA 2021 pageant which is a state pageant for the internationally recognized Miss Universe System. Not long after that accomplishment, she was awarded the state title of Miss Maine High School America.
Another one of Mikaela's favorite quotes:
“I’ve never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” - Estée Lauder
It’s one Mikaela truly lives by. She serves as a role model who strives for her goals and perceivers through challenges.
Her advice to anyone seeking success is to put your heart into everything you do and don’t give up - especially when it gets hard.
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Thank you, Mikaela, for sharing your journey with us all!
#whm #womenshistorymonth #womansupportingwomen #womanoftheday #mainephotographer
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