GOTR Community Projects

As another season of Girls on the Run approaches its finish, its time once again for our community project. This is my fourth time coaching Girls on the Run and in my first season we made cards for Make a Child Smile and Holiday Mail for Heroes (more on my blog GOTR Community Service Project), in my second season we had a bake sale with proceeds benefiting the Helen Woodward Animal Center, (more on my blog Another Season Ends), in my third season we again made cards for the military through the Holiday Mail for Heroes program (more on my blog GOTR Gives Back), and now in my fourth season the girls decided to do a toy/book drive for the Polinsky Center for Children and to also make cards for the kids there.

Holiday Mail for Heroes

The Polinsky Center is an emergency shelter for abused and neglected kids, and it turns out that one of my GOTR girls stayed there prior to joining her new family who has now adopted her. The girls had an easy time bringing books and toys to donate, but then struggled a bit coming up with cards to write for kids at the center. I suggested that they keep the cards light and upbeat, with general phrases like "Hope you have a good summer" and "Thinking about you". At one point the girl who had stayed at the center said to me "I just don't know what to write". I didn't want to make her uncomfortable by letting her know that another coach had told me she had confided in them about having stayed there herself, so I said "Well, what is a nice thing you can say that someone there might want to hear? Maybe something general?"  She said something that broke my heart for a second and made me just want to hug her (I restrained myself) ... she said "Um I don't know ...  'It gets better'?) Aww. :o( Tear. I hope that's the case for most of the kids!

Cards for the Polinsky Center

The girls ended up making some cute cards and brought a nice pile of their own toys and books to donate.  In addition to my site, there are 14 other groups of Girls on the Run in San Diego county! I reached out to the other coaches to see what their girls came up with. It was heartwarming to see the variety of projects that the kids had decided on. Some of the other projects were:

• Carving soap for a nursing home
• Picking up trash and recyclables at a school
• Collecting donations for an animal shelter
• Creating a lemonade stand with proceeds to benefit an animal shelter
• Making signs for the police, fire department, and border patrol
• Making bracelets and cards for Make a Child Smile and Love Letters
• Trash pickup and signs to encourage recycling

Cards for Make A Child Smile & Love Letters

Donation Drive for the Rancho Coastal Humane Society

Carving Soap for a Nursing Home

Appreciation Signs for the Police, Fire Department, & Border Patrol

Cards for the Polinsky Center

Help the World - Recycle!

Lemonade Stand/Bake Sale with Proceeds Towards the Humane Society

Track Pickup at a Community Center

I love this part of the Girls of the Run curriculum and it seems that the girls really enjoy it too. Is it ever too early to learn to give back? I don't think so! Philanthropy should begin at an early age to not only help us appreciate what it is that we have, but to put in perspective what we  and others don't have, and to help us find joy in the simple ways we can help others.  As far as Girls on the Run goes, I joined so I could give back to girls in my community, but by way of volunteering I have found that the program has enriched my own life  as well. Funny how that happens right? Give back and you'll get so much more back in return. :o)

Another Season Ends

Last week marked the end of the Spring 2010 season of Girls on the Run (GOTR). I was sad for it to end but somewhat relieved to have more of my personal time back since I’m getting to the last intense month of my marathon training and my new job is getting pretty intense as well. Its actually intenser. Is that a word? Microsoft says no apparently.

Community Service Project

The GOTR curriculum focuses on three major areas: all about me, all about us, and all about community. In the last few weeks of the season the girls worked together to come up with a community project that they could execute during one of our sessions. Last season the girls decided to make cards for our military service members and veterans, and for ill children through the programs “Holiday Mail for Heroes” and “Make a Child Smile”. More details on my blog GOTR Community Service Project.

This season the girls decided that they wanted to put on a bake sale with the proceeds supporting the Helen Woodward Animal Center. The girls all signed up for something to bring (baked goods, drinks, cups, plates, etc) and a couple weeks ago we completed our project!

GOTR Bake Sale for the Helen Woodward Animal Center

The project was a great success! We ended up raising $134 to send to the Helen Woodward center. Our GOTR site meets at the Carmel Valley Rec center where there are a large variety of activities going on. There is a steady flow of people and we had a decent stream of customers. We also had a handful of people who made flat-out donations to our fund without buying a treat! The girls had a great time and they all enjoyed putting their efforts towards a greater good.

GOTR Bake Sale for the Helen Woodward Animal Center

GOTR Bake Sale Refreshment Table

Season End Celebration

The last official day of GOTR Spring in San Diego was last Thursday April 29th. We had the girls meet at a building nearby where we had access to the cafeteria. During our celebration we let the girls spend time making necklaces, bracelets, and keychains with the beads they had earned all season (one ¼ mile lap earns 1 bead), we had a yogurt sundae making session for our healthy snack, and then we gave out awards to all of the girls.

Season End Shirt Signing

 Season End Bead Crafting

Yogurt Sundae Bar

Lunafest

After the season end celebration I jetted off to an adult flavored GOTR event – Lunafest! Lunafest is a film festival with films made by women about women. It was an INCREDIBLE event! The event began with a cocktail type reception with a GREAT spread of food and drinks. After the reception (which lasted long enough for all of us to enjoy the gorgeous sunset view right on the water in La Jolla Shores) we then headed inside for the films. The films really were great. After the event there was a survey asking which film was your favorite and I really struggled picking just one!

As if the Hors d'œuvres and films weren’t enough, on the way out we all got these great goodie bags! Reusable Whole Foods lunch bags, cute running gloves thanks to GOTR San Diego, active snacks, and great coupons.

The event was a lot of fun and it was a really nice way to end the GOTR season. My friend Joanna from Zimmer and my petsitter (and SO much more) Jodie and her husband also attended the Lunafest to help support the GOTR cause.

Jodie, Joanna, and J'Me at Lunafest

The capstone event of the GOTR season is a 5k … which happens to be this Saturday! The event the girls will run in is the "Give Your Heart to Monarch 5k" to support the Monarch School of San Diego. The Monarch School is a school for homeless and at-risk children in the area, and is one of only three schools of this kind in the country!

I am SO excited for this race. Last year’s race was a truly amazing experience which was so moving for me personally as a coach. I think I held back tears about a dozen times!

I will post an update next week with more details about the race this weekend.

GOTR Community Service Project

As most of you know I’m coaching a program called Girls On The Run (GOTR). The program is for girls ages 8-11 and it “educates and prepares girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living”. We go through a number of exercises and activities each time we meet, and the program ends with the girls running a local 5K.

The season has 24 lessons that focus on three main topics:

1. All About Me – Getting to know who I am and what I stand for

2. Building My Team – Understanding the importance of cooperation

3. Community Begins With Me – Learning about community and working on a community project

Community Begins With Me

We started on “Community Begins With Me” a couple weeks and began discussing what a community is, what communities the girls are a part of, and what it takes for a community to run smoothly. We then started talking about the community service project with them and had them start thinking about what they would like to do as a group for their community project.

Developing The Project

We brainstormed with the girls last Tuesday to help them come up with a great community project idea. The project had to be something that we could complete during one session (one hour time limit) and at our regular meeting site (Carmel Valley Community Rec Center). This ruled out anything that took a lot of time, or involved us having to go somewhere else to complete the project.

Some of the ideas that they came up with were:

• Create puppets for a puppet show to benefit a local hospital
• Create holiday cards for the elderly and homeless
• Collect clothing for a homeless shelter
• Make cards for a local hospital
• Collect shoes to donate
• Collect toys/canned food/clothing for a shelter

We took a secret vote for the above ideas (eyes closed, hands raised so no one’s feeling was hurt if their idea wasn’t chosen) and the winner was.....

Creating holiday cards for the elderly/homeless!

One idea that I didn’t move onto the voting stage? “Going to a hobo village and giving out food!”. Umm… hobo village? Ha ha. What? Wait, I think there is actually one right around my storage unit downtown. No jokes… it’s a bit colorful down there. I informed the girls that “hobos” isn’t really a nice name for homeless people and that they probably shouldn’t call them that. They seemed a bit confused … apparently K-12 education has updated their lingo since I was last in school.

Anyways, we then went around the group of girls and had them all list something that they would bring to help make the cards. We had a long list of items including: envelopes, markers, colored pencils, glitter, pipe cleaners, construction paper, stickers, crayons, gel pens, and envelopes.

I then needed to figure out a place that we could send the cards. I figured a hospital or senior home might not want a random package of cards to show up on their door, so I looked to see if there were formal charities or organizations set up that would fit with our project. Luckily, I found two! While doing my research I found two programs that I thought the girls would enjoy, and decided to present both of them to the girls as options to see which they liked better. While they weren't hospitals or senior centers as they were originally hoping for, they were great options that would work for our project.

Option 1 - "Holiday Mail For Heroes"

http://www.redcross.org/holidaymail

This is a program put together by the American Red Cross which allows Americans to "send a touch of home" to US service members and veterans across the country and abroad.

Option 2 - "Make A Child Smile" (MACS)

http://www.makeachildsmile.org/index.shtml

This organization provides emotional support to families whose children suffer from chronic or life-threatening illness. Most of these children are chronically ill and some are terminally ill.

There were a few guidelines for both of the programs, they both prohibited glitter due to health concerns, they also both recommended leaving our religious references or specific holiday greetings (since not everyone celebrates Christmas), and for the children’s cards they sadly asked that the cards did not contain the phrases “Get well soon” or “Get Better”, since many of the children in the program have illnesses with no known cure and unfortunately never were going to get better. Wow.. so sad. :o( The site suggested instead to say things such as “Wishing you well”, “Praying for you”, or “Thinking of you”.

Executing the Community Project

The girls showed up last Thursday armed with supplies and a ton of energy. They were ready to get their markers out and start their cards and I struggled a bit at first to calm them down and get them to stop and listen to the guidelines. DOWNER ALERT! Nothing erases the smile of a girl holding markers and pipe cleaners than someone telling them that their card should be cheery but not say things such as “get well soon”, because these children that they would be sending cards too most likely were NOT going to be getting well soon. Yes, call me Eeyore.

The girls perked back up quickly though when I said that I had profiles of 14 different kids which included pictures of them, information about their condition, a list of their favorite things and interests, and information about their siblings if they had any.

I honestly thought that the girls would be split between wanting to make cards for the military versus the kids. I was wrong! All of the girls immediately started yelling “I want a kid!” and grabbing for a profile. Since I only had 14 profiles and we had 24 girls, some of them had to share a kid or some started on their cards for the military first.

The other coaches and I walked around while the girls were creating their cards to give them ideas on what to write, make sure that they were following the guidelines, and to help share the load of supplies between the girls. I broke up two fights over a book of stickers but besides that the girls shared very well.

While the girls were making their cards one of the girls was really excited to make her card for her “new friend” because the girl’s birthday was the same month as hers! Then she noticed that the girl was actually born the same year as her. Then the sad realization set in .. “wait….” She said. “This girl is only a little bit older than I am…” …. And I think I know the part she was thinking but didn’t say. “And she’s dying..”. Yes, so sad. :o( The girls really got into making the cards and there were so many cute ones created. In total the girls created 35 cards. We had 11 for our military service members and 24 kids for the Make A Child Smile Program!

Pop-Up Present Card

PC Happy Holidays Card

Cards For The Military

Disney Themed Card

Present Card

"We Have A Lot In Common" Cards

I think our community project was a great success and I think the girls had a lot of fun completing it!