Jessica MacNiel of White Rock has been busy spending her time as the reigning Miss Teenager World volunteering and fundraising. She is halfway to her goal of $10,000 goal for the Make a Wish Foundation by holding bake sales, bottle drives and selling lemonade.

“I also volunteered almost the entirety of my summer of 2021 at a non-profit kids’ sleepaway camp. I did dishwashing, which was about eight hours a day. The people I met while working in the dishpit, were amazing people; they're so positive”.

 On this edition of Today in BC, host Peter McCully chats with the teen whose mantra is “Beauty is not skin deep”.

“It’s about really dissociating the idea of beauty with the idea of body. I don't ever want to relate somebody's beauty to the way they look. I think such a descriptive and intense word as something being beautiful should never, ever, be associated with the way something looks because there's so much more important parts of a person than what's on the outside.”

MacNiel, who will be passing her crown back this fall at the competition in Ecuador, says she has been the subject of negative comments and cyber-bullying on her social media accounts.

“Once I had started competing in pageants and that became a topic on my social media accounts, not only were there positive comments and people were happy for me, but there were people who were unhappy. I don't know if it's jealousy or they just didn't like me as a person, but they were not shy to speak out about it.”

The Grade 12 student says her career goal is to become a journalist and eventually to teach.

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