Fast Facts About GOTR

  • Girls on the Run® Inc is a nonprofit organization established in August 1996.The first program started with a group of thirteen third and fourth grade girls at Charlotte Country Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  • Fifty percent of all girls who complete one 12-week session of Girls on the Run sign up for at least one more 12-week session. Some participants continue onto Girls on Track® and/or participate in Girls on the Run summer camps.

  • Current sites have registration numbers that range from 4 to 50 girls. If registration numbers are more than 20, another group is established.

  • The Girls on the Run program regularly administers a pre- and post-test to measure the participants' attitudinal changes. Test scores to date show our efforts to support and strengthen girls are working!

  • Girls on the Run has been nominated by the Women's Sports Foundation to the Department of Health and Human Services as an exemplary program.

  • Girls on the Run founder Molly Barker won America's Most Out of the Box Individual award sponsored by Mazda U.S.A. She won the award based on a presentation regarding life outside the "Girl Box."

  • Girls on the Run has received media attention from Runner's World, Running Times, Healthy Kids, Cooking Light, and Parents magazines, and from NBC News, Daughters Newsletter, and more. For copies of articles, contact Girls on the Run at (360) 255-6428.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why the Young Age?

 

Studies show that girls between the ages of eight and twelve are still receptive to adult influence, while beginning to feel peer pressure.  It's an age psychologists call the latency period of development, when girls begin to confront important life and relationship issues.  As a prevention program, Girls on the Run initiates healthy decision making about difficult issues and really talking to their parents/caretakers before it's too late.

 

In addition, learning healthy exercise habits early in life increases the chances that participants will value their own physical fitness as adults.  It's well documented that regular, moderate exercise improves cardiovascular functioning, and reduces the risk of developing breast cancer, osteoporosis (brittle bones), and obesity.

 

A variation of the Girls on the Run program, Girls on Track has proven positive with middle school participants and adult women as well.  A mother-daughter and father-daughter version of the program is also available. 

 

What About a Program for Boys?

 

Why only girls? We know that boys are in as much crisis as girls. However, many of our programs cover issues related to girls and women as a result of our founder and early staff being women. We believe the effectiveness of the programs  is based on our personal experiences being women and our ability to be role models and mentor the girls in the programs. 

 

Girls on the Run International has just announced that the first Boys on the Run curriculum development pilot will run at one small site in Charlotte, NC this spring. Using feedback from that pilot, the curriculum developers will revise the curriculum and do a second-stage pilot with a couple of sites in Charlotte in the Fall of '03. Next steps after that may include a third-stage pilot - with a few selected sites around the country, or may go right to nationwide availability, but no sooner than the Spring of '04.

 
 

Why does Girls on the Run cost as much as it does?

 

Participants get a program as well as a curriculum. Girls who participate in the programs will receive newsletters two times per year. Each spring and fall program are 12 weeks in length, with a new lesson each week (total of 24 lessons for the two programs). There are extensive game pieces and handouts for each lesson.  

 

The program also includes a pre- and post-test of all participants. Evaluating the results of this test costs money, as does researching new games, activities, and experiences for the girls who participate in the program.  

 

What makes us distinctively different than a simple curriculum is that participants are linked under one organization. We want the girls to understand that they are part of something much larger than themselves.  They are part of a national girls movement--a change in attitude that could change the world. Are we idealistic? Maybe, but it definitely won't happen if we don't try. And trying is what we are all about!

 

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