Filing With the Secretary of State (Big Kid Paperwork!)

Okay… deep breath.

This was the part where things started to feel super official—like, not-just-a-school-project kind of official.

To make Empower Her Care Kits a real nonprofit, we had to file paperwork with the Washington Secretary of State. (Yep, sounds like a big deal—and it was!)

Basically, this step makes your organization legal in the state you live in. So we went online to the Secretary of State’s website and found the form we needed to fill out. I sat with my mom and went through each part of it. It asked for some serious stuff:

Our official nonprofit name


Our mailing address


The names of our board members (I’ll talk more about that in another post!)


And a short plan about what Empower Her is going to do

This was the first time I realized how much real work goes into starting something like this. I wasn’t just making kits anymore—I was building something bigger that could keep going and growing.

We typed everything in carefully and triple-checked it before we hit submit. And then… we waited. And waited. And waited. 


(Okay, maybe it wasn’t that long, but it felt like forever because I was so excited!)

While we waited, I kept thinking:


“What if they don’t approve it?”
“What if I forgot something?”
“What if I actually did something big enough to get registered as a real nonprofit??”

And then one day—it happened.

We got the official confirmation:


Empower Her Care Kits was now a real, registered nonprofit corporation in the state of Washington!

Cue the happy dance!


I remember thinking: Wow… I’m only 11, but I really did that.

Filing with the Secretary of State taught me that big dreams take paperwork, patience, and a whole lot of passion. But once that approval came through, it felt like my idea had grown up into something even more amazing. This was just one step—but it was a BIG one. And I can’t wait to keep going.

Thanks for cheering me on!

Ava