DALLAS (KDAF) — Miss Dallas 2024, Danielle Ball, and Miss Dallas Teen 2024, Lily Roberts, stopped by Inside DFW to chat with Jenny Anchondo about their experiences participating in the Miss Dallas competition.

The Miss America competitions offer women an opportunity to create a platform based on philanthropy and higher education. Ball, who is currently attending Southern Methodist University, said she paid for her entire undergraduate degree with scholarships from the competition.

“A fact that I really like to make people aware of is that Miss America is actually the largest scholarship provider for women in the world,” Ball said. “We’re providing tons and tons of scholarships to make sure that women are getting the best educational chances they can get.”

Service initiatives are also a big component of the pageants, to highlight the benefits of volunteerism and giving back to the community.

“This is something that I love talking about,” Roberts said. “Mine is all about volunteering. It’s something I’ve done for my entire life, my mom introduced it to me when I was just three years old, and ever since then I’ve grown through Girl Scouts and National Charity League. Now that I’ve started competing in pageants just one year ago, I decided to center my service initiative around that.”

You can keep up with Miss Dallas 2024 on Instagram here, and Miss Dallas Teen 2024 here.