GIRLS ON THE RUN NYC INCORPORATED

With Girls on the Run NYC, we’re reaching girls at an age when they’re developing lasting attitudes towards health and fitness. In building accessible physical education through running into girls’ lives at a young age, we’re building the muscle for healthy activity over their lifetime.

But Girls on the Run is about so much more than running; we’re building healthy social and emotional skills alongside physical fitness, integrating discussions on healthy eating and nutrition, body image, academic success, and relationships. Girls are learning to see their bodies as strong, capable, and powerful, a key factor in combating negative messaging and harmful imagery. This is particularly important in NYC, where many girls are facing increased risks for unhealthy/restrictive eating, type II diabetes, and heart disease.

At the end of our season, as each girl crosses the finish line, she’s building skills that will last her a lifetime.

Girls on the Run NYC provides positive youth development programming to girls aged 8-13.

Our program runs twice each year in public, independent, and private schools and in community sites. Over ten weeks, girls in the program are led by 2-3 coaches over 20 sessions, each including discussion, reflection, and exercise over 90 minutes.

Girls learn critical life skills such as how to manage emotions, help others, make intentional decisions, and resolve conflict that they use at home, at school, and with friends. The program inspires girls to build lives of purpose and to make a meaningful contribution to community and society. This comes to life through a key element of the curricula when the girls in each team identify, create and execute a community service project. The ten week program culminates in a celebratory 5k event, where girls achieve a tangible sense of achievement as well as a framework for setting and achieving life goals.

Since 2006, we have grown to serve over 1,400 girls each year. To date, we have seen an annual 10-15% increase in demand for our trainings and requests for on-site support to provide our services to students facing economic inequality.

Our program is built to improve health and social outcomes and foster values of active community engagement for young girls in NYC. Within our program, Girls on the Run NYC:

- Develops and implements a creative, evidence-based 10 week curriculum in Fall and Spring seasons for girls throughout the five boroughs,
- Maintains a 65-80% full scholarship rate for students,
- Trains coaches from local communities to mentor and support program participants,
- Holds local community impact projects, led by the girls in the program, at the end of each season,
- Hosts a celebratory 5k for program participants, showing them that they can achieve their goals, and
- Shows 97% success in growth of social and emotional outcomes for participants in our program.

An independent, peer-reviewed 2016 study conducted by Dr. Maureen Weiss, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, shows that Girls on the Run’s program provides lasting change in girl’s reported competence, confidence, connection, character, caring, physical activity, and life skills. Furthermore, the study found that Girls on the Run’s program makes a stronger impact than organized sports and physical education programs, including additional strategies for managing emotions, resolving, conflict, helping others, and making intentional decisions. More information can be found at http://www.gotrnyc.org/impact

For Girls on the Run NYC, success is reaching more girls, ensuring that girls throughout NYC are able to access our program and have all the equipment and support they need to succeed. We’ve seen incredible growth each year, and demand within the city is increasing.