You could describe Pamela Bolado as ambitious, determined, and resilient. She’s an entrepreneur, a competitive bodybuilder, a wife and mother, an avid volunteer, and a champion of nonprofits that empower girls and women. She’s lived all over the world and speaks three languages.
And now she’s going to climb Mount Everest and the Burj Khalifa – in the same week.
On Oct. 14, Pamela will depart on a month-long journey to Nepal and Dubai for this vertical feat to raise awareness for mental health and wellness. Four days after getting off the mountain, she’ll take on the 2,909 stairs, or 160 floors, of the world’s largest building.
A newcomer to the Pensacola area, she’s already been named Mrs. Gulf Breeze. Two weeks after her double climbing expedition, she’ll fly to Orlando to compete for Mrs. Florida.
It’s all part of her mission to live with purpose and inspire others.
Pamela’s professional resume is extensive. She’s the founder and CEO of Women Who Do Wonders; the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Mission Wonder Women Foundation; and the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Wellness & Wisdom Magazine. Born with a cleft lip, she now serves on the Advisory Council of Smile Train, an international nonprofit that supports surgery and essential cleft care.
She’s beautiful and strong, an articulate and compelling advocate for girls, women, the military, and many who are suffering. You might think her path has been linear and simple. Not exactly.
Born in Canada, as an adult she spent 13 years abroad, including a decade in Kuwait. As a young mother to a 1-year-old, she recalls watching 9/11 from there. Check off the list: Get tough and learn Arabic.
Throughout her adult life, she’s founded and owned small businesses, volunteered for nonprofits that combat human tracking, promote mental health, support the military, and empower women. She organized her inaugural Wellness & Wisdom summit in 2018 and launched her magazine amid the pandemic. Check off the list: Hone entrepreneurial skills and meet incredible women along the way.
Although she was a competitive amateur boxer as a teen, she quit sports for about 15 years when she lived abroad. She gained weight and had babies, and then decided she was ready to transform herself. When she was 40, her husband left on a deployment. She used the time to train for her first bodybuilding competition and walked out with nine medals. Check off the list: Build the discipline of physical training and channel it for good.
She got into the pageant world through a friend. “I never thought in a million years I’d do a pageant,” she laughs. But she decided to do it to benefit Smile Train and to be a role model. “I want girls to feel beautiful in the skin that God gave them.”
For now, she’s wholly focused on training for those back-to-back climbs on the mountain and on the stairs. She will be raising money for three charities: Wrestle Like a Girl, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and WomenforWomen.org.
If you want to get involved, visit womenwhodowonders.org and sign up for her Fired Up for Fearless Challenge. You can follow the challenge that Pamela has designed, or you can create your own. The challenge includes six weeks of professional speakers sharing wisdom and health resources.
In the long run, she says she wants to make the world better by building a global community. That might seem a little daunting to some of us, so Pamela advocates starting where you are and building from there. “When I started (to transform myself), I couldn’t run around the block, but now I’m climbing mountains!” she said.