For the past 10 weeks, the “Girls on the Run” crew at Abram Lansing were hard at work training for a 5k fun run that took place on Saturday, Nov. 15 at Jennings Landing in Albany.
The team is made up of third, fourth and fifth graders – Trinity Changa, Adaline Conway, Zenovia Evans, Londyn Griffin, Zsiva Johnson, Emperor Jones, Olivia Lester and Mia Rowe. The girls have been training with their coaches, fifth grade teacher Bridget Quinlan and school psychologist Natalie Partyka-Recktenwald.
Girls on the Run International was founded in 1996 and inspires individuals of all abilities to discover, build, and grow their self-confidence. It has served over two million girls across North America.
“The program teaches the girls how to stand up for themselves as well as stand up for others, spread kindness and be a strong assertive human,” said Ms. Quinlan. “Girls on the Run teaches them strategies to use when encountering difficult situations.”
The training consisted of twice a week meetings for eight weeks, where the coaches taught 16 lessons around the idea of empowerment and being assertive.
“As these topics are being discussed the element of running is included,” said Ms. Quinlan. ‘Run’ means to move in any way that is a happy pace for each individual girl; maybe that is jogging, walking, skipping, or pushing yourself in a wheelchair.”
And, said Mrs. Partyka-Recktenwald, “it’s less about the running and more about who you become throughout the program.”
Part of the program involved completing a community impact project that is driven by what the girls want to do for their community. They design, plan, and carry out the entire project on their own, with guidance from their coaches.
The team decided to collect and donate items to the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society in Menands.
“They designed boxes to collect items, wrote and delivered announcements each morning asking for donations, and will help to organize the donated items to be dropped off at the humane society,” she said.
At the end of each season the big 5K Celebration Race brings together teams from all over the Capital Region to celebrate everyone’s hard work.
“The girls have really been working hard the past ten weeks. Coach P and I are so very proud of them!” said Ms. Quinlan.