Seeing beyond the Miss Georgia Volunteer 2027 crown, Sarah Jane Houston champions representation

LEESBURG— They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For Sarah Jane Houston, who was born legally blind and underwent four eye surgeries before turning 2, the greatest obstacle wasn’t how she saw the world — it was not seeing herself reflected in it.

Today, as Miss Georgia Volunteer 2027, Houston is using her “See It Be It” initiative to ensure young people find the representation she once lacked.

Houston, a Lee County High School graduate, was crowned Miss Georgia Volunteer 2027 earlier this month and will represent the state at the Miss Volunteer America competition in June 2027 in Jackson, Tenn.

For Houston, however, the crown is less a destination than another opportunity to amplify a message that has defined much of her life.

“I think a lot of people have the misconception that pageant girls only do something because of the pageant,” she said. “But my service initiative is really my life. Even if I wasn’t Miss Georgia Volunteer, this would still be who I am. This title just gives me a microphone to amplify this message and reach more people.”

Unlike many young women, Houston’s journey into pageantry began almost by accident.

As a middle school band student, she reluctantly entered a fundraising pageant only after her band director pleaded for one more contestant to make the event possible.

“I was in the middle school band, and our director needed another person,” Houston recalled. “She said, ‘Sarah Jane, can you please just do it? You can sing or play your saxophone.’ After a lot of convincing, I finally agreed.”

She finished as first runner-up, and by chance, someone in the audience happened to be a pageant director and invited her to compete again.

“I just kind of got hooked from there,” she said.

What kept her competing wasn’t the spotlight, but the scholarships. Since entering scholarship pageants, Houston has earned more than $20,000 to help pay for college.

“As the oldest of six children, I always understood that paying for college would largely be my responsibility,” she said. “Because of pageants, I’ve been able to go to school almost completely debt-free. It has just been such a gift that I didn’t even expect to find.”

As rewarding as those scholarships were, they eventually became secondary to the purpose she discovered through competition.

Born legally blind, Houston said the surgeries and vision challenges were only part of her childhood experience. What lingered much longer was the feeling of growing up without anyone who looked like her or shared her experience.

“A bigger challenge was the lack of role models and people that I could relate to that also went through similar things and had a visual impairment,” she said. “That lack of representation really had a big impact on me and the way I viewed myself and my self-esteem as a whole.”

Her perspective deepened at home.

Houston is the oldest of six children. Four of her five younger siblings were adopted through foster care, including a brother with a visual impairment more severe than her own, another with an invisible disability and another of a different race.

Watching each of them navigate the same search for representation convinced her the problem extended far beyond her own experience.

“In loving my siblings and through my own personal experience, I created the See It Be It movement, which focuses on empowering youth through representation and inclusion,” she said.

That movement has steadily grown beyond the pageant stage.

Houston recently partnered with BSP Vision Care to bring its Eyes of Hope mobile clinic to Georgia, providing more than 180 free eye exams and more than 180 pairs of glasses to residents in Decatur. She also authored the children’s book “Jamiebug’s Big Day,” featuring a legally blind main character. Today, the book is included in the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning’s Inclusion Initiative curriculum, reaching nearly 30,000 pre-kindergarten students across the state each year.

One stop on her journey, however, affirmed she was on the right path. Earlier this year, Houston visited the Georgia Academy for the Blind and read her book to students.

“When I wrote it, I had children just like those students in mind,” she said. “Watching their faces light up while I was reading is something I’ll never forget.”

Afterward, students shared their own stories of vision loss and the obstacles they had faced.

“Hearing how meaningful that story was to them and how it inspired them to take up space and defy the limitations that were placed on them because of their disability was so incredibly meaningful,” Houston said. “It made me feel really hopeful for the future. It’s one of those moments where you realize what you’re doing really does matter.”

Social media has helped expand that mission even further.

Houston has built a combined following of approximately 24,000 people across TikTok and Instagram, creating opportunities to partner with organizations including BSP Vision Care, the Georgia Academy for the Blind and, soon, the Lions Club.

“I’m excited to see those partnerships continue to grow because it helps me reach more people and keep making an impact,” she said.

As Miss Georgia Volunteer, Houston will spend the coming year traveling throughout Georgia promoting volunteerism while preparing to compete for Miss Volunteer America.

The organization’s mission centers on scholarship, education, responsibility, volunteerism and empowerment while supporting national partners, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and The Salvation Army.

For young girls growing up in southwest Georgia, Houston said she hopes her message extends well beyond the pageant stage.

“I always kind of had the mindset that you can’t really compete against me because I want you to win, too,” she said. “There’s room for everybody in the spotlight and room for everybody at the top.”

She says she hopes that philosophy encourages girls to celebrate one another rather than compete for limited opportunities.

“What makes achieving your dreams really special is when you’re able to be happy for other people’s success at the same time,” Houston said. “When we uplift the women around us, we’re also pouring back into ourselves.”

While pageants often begin with beauty, Houston’s hopes are that they end with something much more lasting: a generation of young people who measure themselves not against one another, but alongside one another — learning to see possibility in others until they can finally see it reflected in themselves.