Barker, Molly 2004, Girls on Track

Molly Barker is founder of the program called, “Girls on the Run”.  She began the non-profit organization in Charlotte, North Carolina while she was a coach at Charlotte Country Day School.  Molly started the program in 1996 and today it is in thirty-six cities and forty-one states across the country.

The program is based on ten weeks of classes that meet twice a week.  Usually, there are only a small number of girls in each class and one or two counselors.  These counselors play games that develop conversations with the girls about topics that they encounter in the daily lives.  The discussions might be about bullying at school, peer pressure, troubles at home, or how the girls think about themselves.  Soon the girls will begin their training by first doing warm up exercises, and then starting their runs. Their goal is to work up to running a total of five miles by the end of the ten weeks.  Usually there is a Girls on The Run race event during the last month held locally with several groups coming together and competing. 

The main goal of the program is to have the girls become effective communicators and learn to have self respect for themselves and respect for others before they hit the middle years of growth.  The program is designed for 8 year olds and up.