The proverb is ancient. The need is now. This is the research, the story, and the reason we show up.
"It takes a village to raise a child" is an ancient African proverb, and it was never only about children. It was about survival. Before programs, systems, or social services, there were people. People who showed up without being asked. People who checked in when life got hard. People who held each other through the kinds of weight that no one person was ever meant to carry alone.
Modern life has quietly dismantled that village. We moved to new cities. We built walls where porches used to be. We traded honest conversation for curated highlight reels. And somewhere along the way, many of us started carrying everything by ourselves, without even realizing we were not supposed to.
"Our nervous systems are wired for co-regulation, mutual support, and shared burdens. Isolation is not just loneliness. It is a public health crisis. And women are carrying it quietly."
Check On Your Girls was built in response to this. Not as a program to attend once and leave. As a village. A living, breathing network of women who show up for each other in real time, in real life, without judgment and without a performance requirement at the door.
The research does not lie. Women and girls are uniquely impacted by loneliness, depression, and the absence of safe community. These are not abstract statistics. They are the women sitting in our Check-Ins and the girls we build programs for. Every number below represents a real person who deserves better access to care, connection, and community.
Sources: KFF Survey on Racism, Discrimination and Health (2025) · CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2023) · CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2021-2023) · Framingham Heart Study (2025) · Pew Research Center (2025)
Women
Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD, across every age group studied.
European Psychiatry, Peer Reviewed Research, 2025Of women feel lonely always or often, compared to 13% of men. Black women report the highest rates at 22%. Loneliness is not a personal failure. It is a systemic gap in care and community.
KFF Survey on Racism, Discrimination and Health, 2025Of women report experiencing burnout, compared to 58% of men. Women are also 8 percentage points more likely to say they are struggling or in crisis at work.
Mind Share Partners Mental Health at Work Report, 2025The average time between when a woman first experiences mental illness symptoms and when she receives care. Cost, stigma, and lack of access keep too many women waiting too long.
Mental Health Stats, 2026Of women say they would turn to a friend for emotional support, compared to just 38% of men. Women are built for connection. When that connection is missing, everything suffers.
Pew Research Center, January 2025U.S. adults experience significant loneliness on any given day. Women have historically reported substantially higher levels of depression and loneliness than men across all studies.
Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, 2023Girls
Of teenage girls show symptoms of depression, nearly double the rate of boys at 31%. Girls are in crisis and most are not getting help.
CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023Of girls ages 12 to 19 are living with depression, the highest rate of any age or gender group. Depression in girls is more than double the rate seen in boys the same age.
CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2021-2023Teens with depression never receive treatment that meets minimum standards. The gap between need and access is exactly where Check On Your Girls shows up.
Surgeon General Youth Mental Health AdvisoryIn 2025, the mayors of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and a third neighboring city joined forces to launch the Tampa Bay Connections campaign, calling loneliness a growing public health crisis and pushing for increased mental health funding across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties. The need is local. It is urgent. It is exactly why we exist.
We do not talk about community. We build it. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Structured, intentional spaces where women gather for honest conversation and guided reflection. No scripts. No performing. Just real talk, backed by professional expertise.
We bring therapists, wellness professionals, financial advisors, and community leaders into the room as fellow villagers, not speakers on a stage. Their knowledge becomes accessible to every woman in the room.
Young girls deserve intentional environments to build confidence before the full weight of the world arrives. Our youth programming creates exactly that, outside of traditional school settings.
We partner with organizations, sponsors, and collaborators who share our belief that every woman deserves access to real resources, regardless of what she can afford.
The village starts with one person deciding to show up. That can be you, whether you attend, partner, sponsor, or simply spread the word.