BRATTLEBORO — Coaches, community members and volunteers, and girls in grades 3-8 from 30 schools in southern Vermont - 1,000 all told - participated in what Girls on the Run Executive Director Nancy Heydinger describes as “a beautiful and incredibly inspiring and rewarding 5K event” May 17 for the Girls on the Run 5K Community Fitness Celebration.
The glorious Saturday race was the culminating event for Girls on the Run, a 10-week course that combines athletic training and lessons in self-esteem and self-confidence for girls in grades 3-5. Its sister program, Girls on Track, serves girls in grades 6-8.
With more than 2,000 girls participating at 92 sites throughout Vermont, Girls on the Run Vermont continues to provide “positive, healthy, and non-competitive” programs for girls who are 8 to 13 years old, Nancy Heydinger says.
The girls followed a figure-eight course beginning at Brattleboro Union High School, along Fairground Road, South Main Street, Oak Grove Avenue, Sunny Acres Road and Atwood Street and ended up back at the high school.
“The girls crossed the finish line beaming with pride and excitement,” Heydinger recounts. “Next, they rushed to the sidelines to cheer on their teammates … knowing a bowl of Ben & Jerry's ice cream was in their near future!”
“Each participant sported the #1 on her jersey, and each one was a winner,” she noted.
Combatting the media message
The organization's mission, according to Heydinger, of Vernon, is “educating and preparing girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living”; its aim, “development of the 'whole' girl.”
“Growth is phenomenal, programs are exploding throughout the state, demand is extremely high,” says Heydinger. “Some schools are swelling to accommodate 30 to 40 girls.”
The curriculum, with two meetings per week, has been designed to help each girl learn about herself and her values, teamwork, and building community, while training for the 5K event.
Each group also takes on a community project; these have included car washes, bake sales, and planting and caring for flowers for a summer.
Some 200 volunteer coaches - teachers, nurses, principals, community members, and parents - also serve as mentors to girls in the program.
Carol Bailey, a physical therapist, is in her fifth year coaching Girls on the Run Vermont at Guilford Center School.
Bailey initially volunteered because “I like kids, I like running, and I had a daughter in the program,” she says. She's continued because of the message given to girls that “health should be about fitness, not thinness. The program tries to combat the media message that girls should look a certain way to be happy. We're catching them before they get ultra self-conscious.”
Each time the groups meet, lessons are interspersed with - and integrated with - games and running laps.
According to the national Web site, www.girlsontherun.org, the program begins with a three-week series of lessons, “All About Me,” which lets girls understand who they are and what they stand for. It moves to three weeks of exercises in team building and cooperation, and the final three weeks of the program move the girls into their community service project.
Although the structure of the program is the same for all age brackets, the middle-school-age girls get a “more targeted and age-appropriate discussion regarding certain topics” like eating disorders, tobacco and alcohol use, personal and Internet safety, and harassment, according to information on the site.
Bailey says the program catches the girls at a young enough age “where the girls are still receptive to adults' influence to help them with these skills.”
“Every year I wonder, 'Is this sinking in?' I see the girls as they get older, and they respond really positively. To be another positive adult influence. It's just a blast. We're getting them outside, teaching them about fitness and teamwork, not competing,” Bailey says.
Heydinger says the program is open to all girls, “regardless of their athletic ability or socioeconomic standing.”
Parents pay $60 of the $100 cost to put each girl through the program. A scholarship program also ensures that no girl is ever turned away. The program is funded through grants, program fees, and fundraising.
Thinking outside the girl box
Girls on the Run Vermont is part of a national program founded in 1996 by Molly Barker, a counselor, social worker, and teacher in Charlotte, N.C. The national organization serves more than 50,000 girls every year.
The program serves girls before they reach what Barker has described as the “'girl box' - that place where society, peers, even parents inadvertently direct so many girls, a place where they think they are judged on a superficial level only.”
In its nine years Girls on the Run Vermont has taken root.
“The girls, they're perfect the way they are,” says Heydinger, who won the Community People Award in 2006 with her husband, Tom, for their work with the program.
“So many women are coaching, helping girls to be stronger, to stand up for themselves. You can take risks in Girls on the Run,” she says.