Les Jeunes Amies

  For about a year now, I've been in a debutante group called Les Jeunes Amies which stands for young friends of the  Symphony.  It's basically a group of young high school girls from ages 14 to about 18 doing service for the symphony.  The earliest you can join is as a freshman in high school, which was when I joined.  Each year you are required to obtain 4 service units but the thing is that a unit doesn't translate to an hour exactly.  So in the end, you end up doing A LOT of service hours, and although it sounds like a ton of work (which it is), you have so much fun doing it.  Now that I've told you about the boring service stuff, I get to talk about all the fun stuff!  At the beginning of the year, the first LJA event is a tea welcoming all the new members.  We get to dress up and wear tall 4 inch heels and be proper!  It's very thrilling as a freshman.  Then throughout the year we do various different service acts for the symphony such as work and attend a symphony concert, work at a clay shoot, go to an etiquette essentials class and many more. 

  Half way through the year, the biggest event of all happens.  The LJA ball!  The ball happens around Christmas time and all the senior debs are presented in front of probably a couple hundred people.  They get to wear white gloves, a long white wedding dress, and all sorts of diamonds!  Their fathers escort them down an isle to walk past all the guests attending the ball while an LJA director announces/talks about the many different things the debutante has done to complete her units and the different things she is involved in both inside and outside of school.  I'm sure its a very proud moment for both the parents of the debutante and the young women's many guests she is permitted to invite!  Later on after the debs are presented we party.  Everyone is dancing to old timey music from the 70's in their long beautiful gowns and just having such a good time.  Once the ball is all said and done, there is another tea at the end of the year; which is what I happened to attend today.  It was so fun!  I got to go dress shopping yesterday and I got a very pretty dress to wear to the luncheon.  While there I saw all the friends I had made throughout the year and saw all the new girls we have that have joined the freshman group.  I can't wait for my senior year when I get to be presented and be recognized for all this hard work we have coming up over the next 3 years!  

Ps: For any girls reading this that are interested, let me know because there are still 8 open slots for the freshman!  It's really fun(: