A local resident has been named Miss Wellington County World and in July will vying for the title of Miss World Canada.
Jasmine Herrera, 22, of Guelph, has been participating in pageants since 2013, when she competed for the Miss Teen Canada title after deciding she wanted her “own thing” in high school.
“That was the first time I’ve done a whole big national pageant and then after Miss Teen I took a little bit of a break, got my schooling done,” she said. “I’m a dental assistant now.”
When she was done school she competed in Miss Earth Canada and was the third runner up.
“So I was pretty close,” she said. “Made top five.”
At that competition she received a better score than her pageant idol.
“I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I can do this,’” Herrera said. “It’s just proving (it) to yourself.”
Now she is in the race to become Miss World Canada.
In January she participated in the Ontario provincial pageant and was in the top 15 contestants, giving her the Miss Wellington County World title and securing her a spot in July’s Miss Canada World competition.
“It’s not just about standing up there, looking pretty … you do a lot of community service, volunteering, and the bigger thing is fundraising, as well,” Herrera said.
“So it’s very time consuming, lots of work, organization and kind of working around how to do all that around my work schedule.”
For Miss Ontario World she fundraised for Cardiac Kids and for Miss Canada World she is now fundraising for the Children’s Wish Foundation.
The July pageant will be a week-long competition in Toronto at which contestants will spend some time touring, promoting the pageant and competing in various tasks like a talent competition and fitness assessment.
At that point Herrera will also promote her platform, which is “bringing more to light to talk about sexual abuse, any types or forms of abuse … and just talking more about it.
“Because I know it’s … a topic that people kind of still don’t really like to talk about.”
She said she likes pageants because they’re about so much more than looking pretty and getting a crown – they motivate other people.
When Herrera did Miss Teen her platform was to raise mental health awareness in youth and after the pageant she said she was getting messages from people on Facebook that she didn’t know.
“It means so much to me; people tell me their personal stories and I was like ‘wow, so it actually made an impact on other people,’” she said.
“So that’s what made me really think like, ‘okay you’ve got to stick with this, this is actually making an impact on other people,’ so I just ran with it.”
Though Herrera is focusing completely on the Miss Canada World competition right now, she said her ultimate goal is to compete in Miss Universe Canada.
“I’m going to save Miss Universe Canada for my very last one I think, because it’s the big bang pageant – it’s like the Superbowl of pageants,” she said.
Then, when she is no longer competing, Herrera would like to run her own pageant agency.
For more information about Herrera visit facebook.com/MissJasmineHerrera.
