Girls on the Run Georgia

An independent longitudinal study provides strong evidence that our programs are effective in driving transformative change in participants' lives and promoting positive youth development, including season-long and lasting change in confidence, physical activity, life skills, connection, caring, character, and competence. Girls emerge from our programs better liking themselves and who they are!In 2021-22, we reached more than 2,100 young people. We worked hard to grow back our programs after feeling the significant effects of the pandemic. We were overjoyed to return to in-person programming, and our first in-person 5k in two years. Through this time, our community's generosity enabled us to provide 60% of our participants with full scholarships or partial financial assistance so they could access the benefits of our programs. This year we have fought hard against learning loss and the youth mental health crisis by building girls' social-emotional skills, and battled increased sedentary behaviors by getting young people joyfully moving.We began to expand into areas such as Augusta and North Georgia, and changed our name from Girls on the Run of Atlanta to Girls on the Run Georgia ("GOTRGA"). We engaged in continued IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) efforts, creating an IDEA Taskforce, doing significant work to build back the racial and socioeconomic diversity of our girls and coaches, and ensuring that our Board of Directors going into this new year was 50% BIPOC to ensure diverse, effective organizational leadership.