Glo - September 2021

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glo Girl

glo GIRL EMILY ESHBACH AGE: 18

By Julie Young | Photo by Olivia Busch

Ever since she was a little girl, Emily Eshbach has tried to lead with a servant’s heart. No matter if it was helping behind the scenes of a local pageant her mother Melissa was directing, raising $47,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s “Student of the Year” campaign, being crowned Miss Duneland 2021, or serving as a motivational speaker for other young people; she believes we can leave a positive legacy in the world if we work to better ourselves and those around us.

“I love that I have the ability to give back to the community that first invested in me, and I look forward to keep building that legacy in the present and in the future,” she said.

Central to that legacy is the “#IAmProudProject: Creating A Legacy of Service,” which the 18-year-old Dekalb High School Alumnae and Auburn native created as part of her contestant platform for the Miss Indiana Pageant (part of the Miss America Organization.) The social impact initiative has a two-fold purpose: to be proud of the legacy you leave behind and to choose courage over comfort to make change happen around you.

Eshbach led a social media campaign highlighting those students who made an impact in the community and were inspiring the next generation to get involved. She secured a sponsorship with the James Foundation to reward highlighted students with Amazon gift cards, and it is a project she plans to keep going even after she retires her sash and tiara.

“The Miss America Organization gave me role models who represented loyalty, passion and a goal-oriented mindset, and I am so excited to keep mentoring young girls to get involved with this wonderful scholarship organization,” she said.

Eshbach earned the Thomasson Scholarship to attend IUPUI’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and is pursuing a double major in marketing and philanthropic studies.

Her goal is to attain both her undergraduate and graduate degree in five years, and she is excited to continue her education at the only philanthropy school in the world.

“With those degrees, I want to become the executive director of a large non-profit organization in the future,” she said. “[The campaigns I’ve been involved in] showed me that I have the ability to excel in [this space] and I want to do it as a full-time job.” a 14

| SEPTEMBER GLO 2021 |