History of the Conference
Becoming the Crown Jewel is a ministry born out of a heartfelt desire to show young women how truly special they are in God's eyes and how He wants nothing but the best for their lives. Many young women seek personal fulfillment and the measure of their worth through the opinions of society. But God says that each of us are created in HIS image and that as His daughters, we are each a Royal Princess, 
cherished by the King of Kings as His precious, rare and beautiful jewels. As so many girls search for love and acceptance in all the wrong places, it is our desire to show these girls how the ultimate love and acceptance are found in the true Romancer himself, Jesus Christ.
The idea for Becoming the Crown Jewel came from a conversation Danna Hathaway, at the time a high school senior, had with her parents. One day in 2002, they were discussing how a gentleman in their church was ministering to and mentoring the young men in their youth group, teaching them the responsibilities they held as Christian young men. Danna expressed a desire for some women in their church to step up and mentor the girls in their youth group in the same way. 
She had sadly realized how girls in our society, girls she knew (and even herself at times), adhered to so many misconceptions about themselves, what makes them special and who should measure their worth. There were so many girls who felt empty because they could not keep up with impressing the world or living up to the world's high (but vain) expectations.
Around the same time, Danna had heard about a conference for girls called Girls of Grace, a ministry of the contemporary Christian group Point of Grace. She expressed a desire to attend this conference, but there was not one offered in the area. After much discussion, prayer, excitement, and vision, Danna's parents, Johnny and Beverly Hathaway, decided to organize a local conference for young girls in our area. Through this desire to share the love of Christ and His perfect plan for His precious daughters, Becoming the Crown Jewel was born. Beverly called a few friends whom she knew had a passion to share the love of Christ with young girls and got them excited about this possibility. After much prayer and affirmation, they met together for the first time to plan this life-changing event.
At first, Danna thought this conference would never get off the ground, but because of the vision and excitement of her parents, and through the determination, commitment, passion and diligent prayers of a small group of women who willingly jumped on board, Becoming the Crown Jewel 2003 was a wonderful success with over 90 middle and high school girls in attendance. As God prepared this group of women for the first year's conference, He provided much healing and restoration in their lives. God was healing their hearts 
as He prepared them to share this very important message with the young women of our community. God was molding them into His crown jewels and teaching them to embrace the importance of pleasing the King instead of the world as they prepared for this conference.
Becoming the Crown Jewel continued in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and we recently held the 8th conference in April 2011. In many ways throughout the years, God has shown the staff of Becoming the Crown Jewel just how awesome, faithful, and powerful He is. In the spring of 2006, God sent Becoming the Crown Jewel to a village in Africa through the women's ministry of Grace Community Church. This blew us away, because the conference Danna thought would never get off the ground back in 2003, had gone around the world just three short years later. God taught us through this that we could NEVER put Him in a box and that there was NOTHING He could not do. Other fantastic women in other towns across America are catching our vision and are starting Becoming the Crown Jewel Conferences as well. We serve an almighty God!
Every year, God expands our conference, the staff and our influence. Every year, our vision grows and every year we are so excited to share this infinite and amazing love of Christ with the girls of Becoming the Crown Jewel. We are blessed with a wonderful staff of Godly women who love the Lord and who love girls and are passionate about sharing the desires and the perfect plan God has for His precious daughters.
We hope that your daughter will have the opportunity to attend this life-changing weekend. We have been praying for her, that God might prepare her heart so that He may be revealed to her in a mighty way at this year's conference. It is our prayer that she may truly understand just how deeply her Heavenly Father loves her, that she will forsake the world's approval and embrace the infinite love of the Father, and that her sole desire will be to live for Him.
We look forward to serving your daughter this year at Becoming the Crown Jewel!