‘Magical’ Mission: Runner Stephanie Mishler Makes a Difference for Others
A two-sport athlete, Stephanie Mishler ’22 knows all about going the distance. The cross country and track & field runner also runs her own nonprofit. Her training and discipline help her stay on course.
“In cross country and track, you need to have a strong mindset to get through the daily runs and workouts,” she says. “Over time, that mental muscle has helped me get everything done that I need to. When I feel like I don’t know if I can do something, I always make it through, because I transfer that muscle into everything.”
Mishler has flexed her entrepreneurial muscles in her nonprofit organization, Home by Midnight, which combines her passion for beauty and her love for volunteerism. With a name inspired by Cinderella, Home by Midnight’s mission is to give girls with disabilities their “princess moment.” Mishler’s nonprofit provides hair and makeup services for girls attending the national Autism Cares Prom.
“The impact on both the attendees and the volunteers is gratifying, heartwarming, and magical,” Mishler says. “For most teenage girls, dressing up with friends to attend prom is a rite of passage. Salons typically don’t know how to cater to girls with autism, so oftentimes they don’t go.”
Mishler began changing that as a high school freshman in Newtown, Pennsylvania, in 2015, when she partnered with the Autism Cares Foundation. Working with a team of eight to 10 girls, Mishler’s pop-up salon comes to life every May in the location of the prom, with volunteers putting on makeup, styling hair, greeting girls and parents, and taking pictures.
“My mission is to integrate this type of social mission and sustainability into business models of current businesses.”
Stephanie Mishler ’22
Mishler plans to expand her efforts after graduation this spring. “When I came to Babson, I wanted to turn my nonprofit into a beauty business,” she says, “but the more I learned about entrepreneurship, the more I felt like I needed more experience before doing that.”
An Arthur M. Blank Scholar, Mishler also excels in the classroom. She is writing her honors thesis on the beauty industry, and as a two-sport student-athlete, she has earned NEWMAC Academic All-Conference honors three times. Mishler missed out on both the track & field and cross country seasons in 2020 because of the pandemic. She returned this fall to running cross country and will return in the spring to the track, where she has run the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter events.
For Mishler, though, there is no finish line in making a difference for others.
“My mission is to integrate this type of social mission and sustainability into business models of current businesses,” she says. “I would love to either start my own company or work at a L’Oréal or Estée Lauder because they have the biggest impact.”
SPORTS IN BRIEF
Five Selected for Hall of Fame
Five former standout student-athletes will be enshrined in the Babson Athletics Hall of Fame next year, the Hall of Fame committee announced. The 18th induction class includes Catie Funk ’13 (softball), Jason Kosow ’04 (baseball), Anita Martignetti Sassi ’08 (women’s lacrosse and soccer), Kevin Sampson ’94, MBA’03 (men’s soccer), and Nicole Wurdeman ’12 (women’s basketball). The new class will be inducted during Back to Babson weekend in fall 2022. Read more.
Ryan Notches 200th Career Win
Field hockey head coach Julie Ryan, in her 15th season with the program, recorded the 200th win of her career when then fifth-ranked Babson defeated Wheaton, 7-0, on October 16. Ryan is one of 27 active NCAA Division III head coaches with 200 career victories. Read more.
Men’s Basketball vs. Harvard
The Babson men’s basketball team renewed its series with Harvard on December 6 for the first time since 1996. The Beavers and Crimson played six consecutive seasons in the 1990s. The game (a 74-64 loss) marked the 30th anniversary of a 100-80 victory by the 1991-92 team, which advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. Read more.
Celebrating 50 Years of Title IX
Babson Athletics, along with campus partners, is planning a six-month celebration of women’s athletics beginning in January, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Title IX on June 23, 2022. The department will highlight its 11 women’s varsity programs through education, recognition, storytelling, and fundraising. The Beavers’ first varsity women’s program was basketball in 1974.
SAAC Volunteers as Superheroes
For the second time in three years, members of the Babson Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) volunteered at the annual Trunk or Treat event at Mitchell Elementary School in Needham, Massachusetts. This year’s theme was Marvel Avengers, and multiple Babson student-athletes looked the part, including two who dressed up as superheroes.
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