MIAMI — It’s a Saturday morning and 42 young women are learning all about the importance of skin care.

Lisset Tresvant from Glow Baby is teaching the girls simple steps to feel beautiful in the skin they’re in.

“Cleanse every day,” she said. “Wear sunscreen and drink water.”

When the class was over, Tresvant asked the girls to repeat something.

“’I glow’ and I also had them say that ‘I am beautiful and I love the skin that I’m in,’” she said. “I think that those are very important affirmations for young girls.”

The reason the class is even possible is because of the efforts of Louisitta Virgile.

“The program is called Girls of Honor leadership mentoring program,” said Virgile. “It also means God’s open hand.”

It’s a mentorship program she started two years ago.

“When I first started the program, I started with five (girls),” Virgile said.

Every Saturday, the girls take a different course.

When Local 10’s Nicole Perez stopped by, they were meeting with an esthetician.

Virgile says this was important to her for several reasons.

“I know when I was growing up and I had acne problems, I had skin care problems and I didn’t know what was the cause and effect and how to get rid of it,” she said. “I would use toothpaste, not knowing (that) toothpaste was not a safe thing to use. So, I’m like, ‘Why not have a licensed esthetician (come) in and teach the girls the proper way?”

The lessons are extremely valuable, as some of the girls in the class explained.

“How important it is to when you’re like cleansing, the movements that you do, how important sunscreen is, because we get told a lot that we don’t need it, but we do need it,” said Brea Patterson.

“I think today I learned a lot about hydration,” added Courtney St. Louis. “I didn’t really know how important hydration was no matter what type of skin type you have.”

For Virgile, a mother to nine of her own children who herself grew up in the foster care system, she said she felt lost, so it was important to her to create a safe space for young women.

“Becoming a foster child, I also became homeless while in the system,” she said. “I had no resources. It was no mentoring program when I was growing up. There was really no resources. So, I always wanted to be like somebody that was a person that kids could come to and they can find resources. They can have somebody to talk to and open up to and share their stories with.”

Now she provides a plethora of services for the kids in her program.

“We do mental health mentoring, we have South Florida Peer to Project that comes in,” said Virgile. “The girls also do community service at Feeding South Florida. They do (a) tea party with mom. They also become authors within the program.”

The girls also learn how to become entrepreneurs and what it takes to run their own businesses, and then there’s a special ceremony for the new girls who join the program when they receive their leadership jackets.

And for the girls who have been in the program for two years, they get pinned by their parents.

“I feel like a proud mentor mommy because it’s like, yes, although I have nine children, they’re still my children as well,” said Virgile. “I want to feel like I’m doing something within the community to help those (who) don’t know.”

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