The Miss America Organization is renowned for its beauty pageants and national broadcasting, but it also works year-round to raise funds for scholarships from large and small companies. The primary mission of the Miss America Organization is to provide contestants with the opportunity to pursue their professional and educational goals through scholarships and monetary prizes. Catholic University of America Law School encourages community service throughout the student's stay there. During first-year orientation, students take part in projects in several organizations in the Brooklyn area, and an MLK Day of Service sees hundreds of volunteers from all CUA schools in the DC area participate.
The law school also offers an annual Faith in Action series that provides students with the chance to explore the connections between faith, justice, and service with their classmates, exchange ideas with invited participants, and take part in service initiatives in the local community. Each student organization must complete a community service project during the school year to receive funding from the Student Bar Association. Miss USA licenses state pageants to pageant directors, who in some cases are responsible for more than one state. In 1972, the contest was held in Puerto Rico, the only time the contest was held outside the continental United States. The sponsor of the competition, Catalina, decided to withdraw her sponsorship from the competition and create her own competition. Lenora Slaughter revolutionized the pageant since its inception by distancing it from rude practices of other competitions, where the connection between money and the exhibition of women in public was obvious.
The contest was broadcast on CBS from 1963 to 2002, and for many years it was known for having a host of a CBS game show as the presenter of the contest. Miss USA is an American beauty contest that has been held annually since 1952 to select the participant from the United States in the Miss Universe contest. The District of Columbia is home to many pageants each year that are associated with charitable initiatives. These initiatives include food and clothing drives, voter education campaigns, and other philanthropic and service projects. Through these initiatives, pageant contestants have an opportunity to give back to their local communities while also pursuing their professional and educational goals.
