By Tracy Ouellette
Kathleen Wotjtasiak, 57, of East Troy, is leveraging her beauty pageant title to help fight bullying and abuse.
Wotjtasiak is currently competing in the Ms. Petite USA Pageant. She is also a multi-pageant titleholder.
“As a titleholder we are required to choose a platform near and dear to our hearts,” she said. “I choose combatting bullying and abuse.
“One would never think that ‘the pretty popular girl would get bullied.’ Wrong! It happens far to often and happened to me. I chose to leave the Catholic school in the seventh grade to be able to participate in athletics and cheerleading.
“For some reason a certain crowd of girls had it out for me. I knew I was strong from dance, so I didn’t back down which led to fights. As and adult I found myself in an abusive relationship, that was very hard to get out of. I was to embarrassed to say anything.
“I questioned myself how could I let something like this happen to me,” Wotjtasiak contined. “I thought I was smarter then that. Never the less choosing this platform has allowed me to have the confidence that its ok to go public with this, knowing that who I am will and has allowed others to open up to me and seek guidance and help. Being Black and Blue and have permanent damage to my arms is not OK!”
Wotjtasiak said she has used her voice and platform of shedding light on bullying and abuse to help those in need.
“I took this one step farther and am in the process of having a foundation that I created – Pageants for a Purpose – into a non-profit.
She said she used her own funds to purchase a flip house where a portion of the proceeds will go to help with counseling, clothing, food, temporary housing, etc. The other portion will go to purchasing a second flip and using the same process, until Pageants for a Purpose is able to buy one big unit and have it become a safe house.
“With the exception of dance this is my calling,” she said.
For more of the story, please see the print edition of the East Troy Times/News.
