Girls Gotta Run

Students from the three Girls on the Run teams at the the Washington International School, under the direction of their coaches Betsy Hammond-Chambers, Giorgia Eigen-Zucchi, Kim Moore, Kathleen Sheehan, and Stephanie Cantizano, did a lap-a-thon to raise funds for GGRF. Along with the Girls on Track students at the WIS Middle School, the combined teams raised almost $4,000. At a ceremony at the Elementary School in Georgetown on Friday, December 4, two of the girls presented GGRF Executive Director Pat Ortman and GGRF Board Member and GOTR liaison Ashley Griffith with a check and 37 letters that the teams had written to the GGRF athletes in Ethiopia. You can read their letters here.

Thanks to WIS mom Diane Glauser for photos including the team picture and images from the lap-a-thon.

Girls on the Run is an after school enrichment program for girls in 3rd-5th grades. The goal of the program is to encourage positive emotional, social, mental, spiritual and physical development.

Twice a week the girls meet and play games training to run further each class culminating with a final 5K. Each workout is tied to various life lessons to empower them to become healthly and confident adolescents.

Part of the curriculum is a community service project selected by the girls. This semester the class deliberated over ideas ranging from local support of groups like the SPCA to global organizations benefitting communities in need.

This fall, the Windsor Farm Elementary GOTR of Annapolis, Maryland, unanimously voted to support the Girls Gotta Run Foundation as they recognized themselves in the program of girls being healthy and running. To achieve their goal, they did a Pledge Run on November 13 and raised $801 to help GGRF! They also did a Jingle Bell Run in December

Windsor Farm Elementary GOTR is one of 19 teams across Anne Arundel County under Girls on the Run Annapolis.

Girls on the Run of Windsor Farm Elementary School in Annapolis, Maryland, raced for the girls on May 6, 2008. This 14 member troop chose to fundraise for GGRF this year. The girls were interviewed on WBAL television May 8; one of the girls was asked what she enjoyed and she said she liked the end of the semester run to raise money for those with less!

We had a great time at the race! The weather was fantastic. A little over 100 people had preregistered and around 90 showed up to register onsite, so there were almost 200 people who paid to run....meaning....we made approximately $1,000 for GGRF!!

We set registration up about 3:45 and were practically mobbed until a little after 5 as a few stragglers came rushing in, even tho the 15k was due to start at 5. Luckily the start was about 10 minutes late, too, so everyone made it. We were delighted and excited that Ethiopian runner Dejene Rejessa, who had been contacted initially on our behalf by our NY friend Coach Mike Barnow, showed up. He brought two friends, one of whom also ran. Several people from a WDC Curves ran.

Peter Silverman, along with a summer intern he had working with him, filmed the whole event and took some great photos. Dejene, who ran the 15k in about 50 minutes, ended up overall winner of that event, and one of my Curves friends, in her first race ever, won the 3k in her category. Ben Richter and the army of volunteers were great! We are looking forward to working with them all again next year. The race can actually handle up to 400 runners so, we will aim for even more next year!