Discovering leadership at California summit

A brief instance of paying close attention has, in the long run, led to a trip to California for a four-day leadership summit for nine year-old Trinity Di Fabio.

While at summer camp, she was cutting up magazines for a collage when the content of one in particular caught her attention.

“I said, ‘wait a minute,’ and I read what it said,” she recalled of her first time reading Discovery Girls magazine.

The publication, founded in 2000, is written in large part by its readers, giving “tween” (8 to 12 year-old) girls throughout the US and Canada a forum to read about girls like them, with real problems and real successes.

The content struck a chord with Trinity, who soon found herself applying online to become one of the 36 lucky girls to attend the conference, which will be held in Pacific Grove, near San Francisco, in late August.

After a first round of application questions, Trinity was asked to answer another set of long-answer questions, and to send in photos. The initial questions covered topics like bullying and what girls want to be when they grow up (an artist, or possibly a veterinarian). The second round asked her about hobbies, family relationships and what she likes about her province (her answers: the multiculturalism, the AGO and the museums).

Trinity is looking forward to meeting the five Canadian and 30 American girls who will join her at the summit. She knows nothing about the other girls who were chosen.

“They don’t tell you, because I think they want it to be a surprise,” she said. But meeting new friends will all be part of the adventure.

As for what the summit will entail, Trinity’s first response was to look forward to discussing ideas with the group.

“We’re going to have some conferences in the conference room,” she said.

Other activities will include brainstorming ideas for magazine articles, icebreaker activities with all the participating girls, and likely “thousands of photo shoots.”

While Trinity and her mom, Tara Hall, are taking in the summit, her step-sisters, Ella and India, will be taking a road trip to L.A. with their father.

“I think they’re happy I’m going,” she said.

She will have to temporarily say goodbye to her furry companions while she’s gone, including dogs Ernest and Babycakes, and cat Eva.

Trinity will be starting at a new school in September when she begins Grade 4. Her favourite things to learn about are art and literature, especially poetry. Outside of school, she sings, writes stories and rides horses at the Sunnybrook stables.

That love of writing is part of what inspired her to apply to Discovery Girls in the first place, and one of the things she’s most looking forward to at the summit is the possibility of helping create articles for the magazine.

“I have some article ideas from those questions,” she said.

Most interesting to her would be to cover the topic of pets – whether girls were ready to own a pet, and the idea of being comforted by animals.

Of course, she explained, those ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to writing.

“I’m bursting at the seams.”

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