We are less than ONE WEEK away from registration opening for fall programming here at Girls on the Run Memphis. This season is already shaping up to be one of the best yet for a variety of reasons. Read on to learn a little bit more about the exciting things we have in store for participants, sites, and volunteers this fall!
NEW CURRICULUM: The biggest change this season for Girls on the Run Memphis will be our new curriculum. Several sites this season will be using Hello, Superstar!, a new GOTR curriculum that is proven to help instill confidence and life skills while allowing girls to discover what makes them special through physical activity. At our recent Tom Lee Park Pop-Up Lesson, two of our coaches were able to lead a lesson in this new curriculum, and they remarked how much more natural the dialogue felt, as well as complimented the new games the curriculum book included. Overall, this program is just as effective as our past lessons, while making certain activities more accessible to all participants. This new curriculum also means that many of our returning sites that have been thriving for multiple seasons will be able to switch it up a bit, and participants returning from last year will have all new lessons and activities to look forward to!
NEW SITES: This season, we’ll be adding three new sites to our roster, one of which is a community site serving girls in the Downtown and Midtown areas of Memphis. Tom Lee Park is right on the riverfront, so participants in grades 4th through 8th grade will have beautiful views of the Mississippi River while they learn all about themselves, others, and the world around them. We’re also adding two school sites this season: Snowden and St. Mary’s. Snowden’s head coach will be the incomparable Rhonda Walker, who has been instrumental in bringing this program to Snowden. Also, we are so excited to be back at St. Mary’s for the first time since the pandemic. We have been so fortunate to have a great team of volunteer coaches from the school’s staff and students, and we’re thrilled to finally bring Girls on the Run back to their Lower School, led by Karen Ullman Pai.
NEW VOLUNTEERS: Finally, we’re excited to introduce our new Adopt-A-Team initiative over here at GOTR Memphis for this fall season! Adopt-A-Team aims to secure volunteers who can’t commit to a full coaching schedule but want to make sure the participants at a specific site succeed. These volunteers will end up becoming Team Managers, and they’ll assist scheduled coaches throughout the season through a variety of ways: providing snacks for practices, getting participants fun swag for the 5k, transporting materials from GOTR HQ to the sites. This is a way for stakeholders in our community to take some of the responsibilities off of our coaches and make a meaningful difference in the lives of youth in the Mid-South. Several of our sites have already been adopted, but others are still looking for these valuable champions to make sure they succeed this season, so be sure to share this opportunity with anyone you think may be interested!
On a personal note, I am so excited to be here at Girls on the Run Memphis and to witness my first full season this fall as Program Manager. My time with GOTR has already been so fulfilling, and I can’t wait to see the impact of this program from its very beginning.