A Lehigh Valley woman will soon be heading half way around the world to compete in the Mrs. International World competition.<\/p>\n
But she says winning the crown is only a small part of her mission.<\/p>\n
Heather Davenport has won more than a few titles, including Mrs. Pennsylvania and Mrs. USA International World, but the title she’s most proud of is “mom.”<\/p>\n
“We’ve competed at one pageant together as a family. It’s a little bit crazy, but we love it,” she said.<\/p>\n
Davenport has been in pageants since she was 13 years old. Now, her 5-year-old daughter is following in her footsteps.<\/p>\n
“She sees how much community service I do, and how I’m out there in the community, and making my children happy, makes me happy, so it keeps me going, gives me a purpose in life,” Davenport says.<\/p>\n
And to Davenport, the pageants are about more than just the crowns. They are a way to make a difference.<\/p>\n
“I do this to help other women, men and children out there. I want to show them that their past doesn’t define them, as a victim and survivor of domestic violence,” she said.<\/p>\n
Through her pageantry, Davenport was able to create the nonprofit “We Are Strong.”<\/p>\n
“I put people up into hotels while they’re waiting to get in a shelter, and give them food, clothing and resources,” she said. “I started it last November, and I was able to help over 200 families in the past year.”<\/p>\n
She says she couldn’t have done it without her titles.<\/p>\n
“When you have a national title, people are like, ‘oh, I want to meet you. I want to talk to you. Let me hear about you. Let me help you.’ When I’m just Heather, I have to push harder and work harder, so I feel like it goes hand in hand,” she said.<\/p>\n
Now, in March she’ll be flying to Malaysia to compete for the title of Mrs. International World.<\/p>\n
But even though it’ll be her last competition, her legacy is far from over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lehigh Valley woman will soon be heading half way around the world to compete in the Mrs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,805,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-45375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-lehighvalley","13":"tag-pennsylvania"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}