The Zenaida Cranford Mentor Mentee Mentorship Program’s inaugural St. Croix cultural exchange connected Fayetteville girls with peers through leadership, service and mentorship that continued beyond the summit.
One strong characteristic of leadership is seeing a problem, knowing the solution and not waiting for someone else to provide it.
That lesson became real in St. Croix when a Fayetteville girl, who arrived expecting to participate in the Girl, Ignite Your Fire! Teen Summit & Cultural Exchange, noticed an adult volunteer had been pulled away from the registration table. She saw the gap, knew what needed to be done and stepped in, welcoming fellow attendees, taking names and handing out packets.
No one had trained her for the role. She had simply listened, observed and understood enough to act when the moment called for it.
For Zenaida Cranford, that moment was a glimpse of exactly what she wants young girls to discover: confidence in who they are, the ability to connect with others and an understanding that leadership is something they can put into action.
That vision traveled across the water this summer when Cranford, a St. Croix native, brought a seven-member North Carolina delegation from Fayetteville to the island for the inaugural June 1-6 summit. There, they joined 38 girls from St. Croix for leadership development, wellness, community service and cultural exchange.
But Cranford’s goal went far beyond taking girls somewhere new.
She wanted them to experience what could happen when they stepped outside what was familiar and built relationships with girls whose lives could look both different from, and surprisingly similar to, their own.
For Cranford, St. Croix was a natural place to begin.
Not only is she from the island and familiar with its culture, but as summit partnerships developed, she began discovering unexpected connections between St. Croix and North Carolina.
People they encountered had military ties, including connections to Fort Bragg, and Cranford also noticed similarities between the communities through agriculture.
Cranford said those connections continued appearing throughout the planning and summit experience, reinforcing just how much the two communities had in common.
She also made sure the Fayetteville girls did not spend the week only with one another. Younger participants were placed in the summit’s Sparks group, while older girls joined the Flames, mixing them with St. Croix participants in their age groups.
At first, Cranford said, the Fayetteville girls were nervous and stayed close together. By the second day, they were beginning to move outside those familiar circles.
The exchange also gave the girls a chance to compare educational opportunities. St. Croix participants talked about options available through universities in the Virgin Islands, while Fayetteville girls explained early college opportunities available in North Carolina.
“It gave them an opportunity to expand their portfolio, expand their network, relate to other girls their ages, at the same time exploring different cultures and identities,” Cranford said.
Those conversations were part of her larger plan: Every experience needed to teach something. That intention extended to community service.
During a beach cleanup, the girls collected six bags of trash from the West End, including debris hidden deeper within vegetation that some local residents said they had not realized was there.
Sometimes a fresh set of eyes sees what familiarity can overlook.
But Cranford did not want the girls to walk away saying only that they had picked up trash. Community partners helped them understand how waste can make its way into the ocean, harm marine life and ultimately affect a food source the community depends on.
“It’s not just about picking up trash,” Cranford said. “What is the meaning behind picking up trash?”
“Everything we did was tied into an educational purpose,” she said.
The impact of the summit did not stop when the Fayetteville delegation returned home.
During a speed-style mentor-mentee matching session, girls rotated through eight-minute conversations with mentors and later selected their top choices. Cranford said 36 girls in the Virgin Islands were ultimately paired with mentors for continued relationships.
Girls also exchanged phone numbers and social media information, and some of those connections have continued beyond the summit.
For Cranford, that continuation matters because the trip was never meant to be a one-week experience that ended with a flight home.
“When we give kids an opportunity, especially our teenagers, they will take advantage of the opportunity, as long as the opportunity is good,” she said.
Cranford said opportunities like these can give young people room to discover their identities, gifts and talents while building networks that can stay with them as they grow.
She wants Fayetteville residents to be proud of the teenagers “we are raising together as a collective city.”
Girl, Ignite Your Fire! is part of the work Cranford leads through the Fayetteville-based Zenaida Cranford Mentor Mentee Mentorship Program, which serves girls ages 12 to 17 through mentorship, leadership development, wellness and community engagement.
The free program maintains an open-door policy throughout the year and meets three times a month.
But for Cranford, the larger measure of success may be what happens when no adult is standing nearby giving instructions.
It is the girl who sees the open registration table and steps in.
The girls who look beyond the visible edge of a beach and find what others missed.
The young women who travel somewhere unfamiliar, build relationships, serve and return home with a broader view of who they can become.
Those are the girls Cranford wants Fayetteville to see — not simply as participants in a program, but as part of what the city is producing in its young people today.
For more information about Girl, Ignite Your Fire! Or the Zenaida Cranford Mentor Mentee Mentorship program, visit https://www.facebook.com/ZCMMMP

(Photo: Participants with the Girl, Ignite Your Fire! summit in St. Croix pose for a photo during a beach cleanup. Photo courtesy of the Zenaida Cranford Mentor Mentee Mentorship Program)