Girls on the Run

Girls on the Run is an after-school group at Batavia Middle School that inspires girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum, which creatively integrates running.

Every session, Coach Sarah Gahagan incorporates a guest speaker from the community to inspire girls. Kristen Dispenza and Carrie Richards both directors for the Mary Kay Independant Beauty Business, had quite an inspirational message to share last week: "Change your mind, change your actions, change your world."

Dispenza spoke about the power of positive thinking -- really honing in on the fact that anything is possible. She gave real world examples from her own life and created examples that middle-school girls would experience as part of their life as well.

Another part of her presentation focused on "inner beauty" and how you do NOT need a lot of makeup to look and feel good. She talked briefly about skin care and each young lady was offered the opportunity to wash her face and apply a moisturizer afterward. There were lots of laughs and questions about the importance of good hygiene, (especially your face) especially after running!

Dispenza has quite an inspiring story on how she became a senior sales director with Mary Kay. She graduated from Batavia High School in 2005 and later started her career as a Special Education teacher but quickly felt a need to do more for women, specifically women in need.

She was raised in a single-parent home where confidence and money were not abundant. One of her biggest goals is to not only show women -- ALL women -- how special they are, but to teach them the skills necessary to build a successful business. After only two years with Mary Kay, through perseverance, determination, and heart, Dispenza earned the area's FIRST EVER pink Cadillac...pretty impressive!

Senior Sales Director Carrie Richards worked full time as a caseworker for the Department of Social Services and pursued her master's degree in Social Work part time. She spoke to the girls about how she got into the business and really owed a huge "pay it forward" to her "partner in crime," Dispenza, who inspired her to begin with Mary Kay, which changed her life.

Richards became a part of Mary Kay to surround herself with positive, empowering women and provide herself the opportunity to become a business owner. Her favorite part of her job is giving other women the opportunity to take charge and create a lifestyle that many only dream of. She is extremely thankful to have the opportunity to enrich and empower other women and thinks giving young girls the "Girls on the Run" experience is an AMAZING thing.

Girls on the Run (grades 5-8) meets at Batavia Middle School on Tuedays and Thursdays from 3:30-5 p.m.; this is their third session. The first ever third- and fourth-grade group also just started this spring at John Kennedy School.

Pushing through adversity and not giving up on your goals are keys to success, said Brittany Salmon, Batavia native and one of the top-ranked speed skaters in the nation, while speaking this afternoon to students in the Girls on the Run program at Batavia Middle School.

Salmon always dreamed of being an Olympian, starting as an 8-year-old hockey player with the Batavia Ramparts. And though she went on to play Division I hockey at Princeton, she found she wasn't quite good enough make the Olympic hockey team. More as a chance to compete and have fun, she took up speed skating after college and a coach encouraged her to take a shot at making the U.S. Hockey Team.

She moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and started training with the team, but then she suffered a series of injuries. She had two knee surgeries, a broken back and various tears and sprains of muscles and tendons. That kept her from physical training for two years.

She admitted to feeling discouraged, even depressed, and she thought about giving up speed skating.

"It's hard to keep motivated and keep pushing through when you can't do something that you love," she said.

Then she had a realization. If she couldn't prepare to compete physically, she could still prepare to compete mentally. She started reading books on competition and training, and mental preparation, and nutrition ,and started visualizing exercises.

"So, all the sudden, even though I'm injured, I'm still working towards my goal," Salmon said. "Even when roadblocks come up, there are ways to work around them. Even though you're injured now, maybe you can do sit ups. There's always a way around a roadblock."

By the time she returned to competition, she jumped from a top 16 skater, she said, to maybe a top six.

"After all that hard work of reading and visualizing, I got back on the ice," Salmon said. "I made Olympic trials. I didn't make the Olympic team. I'm bummed about that, but I made our World Cup Team and I earned my USA suit and I got to skate with all the Olympians and I got to race against all of the Olympians. I got my butt kicked, because they're so good. That was my first international race, but it was super cool and I'm so happy that pushed I through it and kept working toward my goals and didn't give up at all."

Molly Barker, who founded Girls on the Run in 1996 in her hometown of Charlotte, N.C., visited Batavia Middle School today to meet with the local members of the after-school girls activity and charity group.  

The girls won the visit after beating out 87 other schools in a contest to collect the most donated used shoes for people in need.

Previously:

• 'Girls on the Run' program at Batavia Middle School aims to have positive impact on community

• Batavia Middle School students tops in shoe drive

Students at Batavia Middle School beat out 87 schools in a shoe drive as part of the Girls on the Run program.

The girls collected 1,220 donated pairs of shoes.

As a result of the big win, Molly Barker, founder of Girls on the Run, will visit Batavia Middle School at a future date.

"We wanted to put a thank you out there to the community for all of their support," said teacher Sarah Gahagan. "We had over 90 Batavia families donate to this cause. Just goes to show how when a community pitches in great things can happen."

Photos and info submitted by Sarah Gahagan.

Girls on the Run, a group of students at Batavia Middle School, are holding a shoe drive as one of their charitable projects in the community. 

Teacher Sarah Gahagan, along with a friend, introduced Girls on the Run to the middle school and is looking to spread the word about the program. They're looking for a community project that the girls can take on.

"This is solely based on what the girls want to do in order for them to feel a sense of ownership and empowerment as they work toward their goal," Gahagan said.

The 12-week program culminates in a 5K in Buffalo.

"The girls set running goals every week in order to gear up for the final event," Gahagan said. "Each girl will cross the finish line with one of their coaches, a parent or a running buddy that they have asked to run with them from the school."

Gahagan described the program as a physical-activity-based youth-development program designed to inspire girls in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades to be joyful, healthy and confident.

In the photo, starting with the front row on the left: Sarah Gahagan, Breeann Wilcox, Juliana Branche, Tiffany Brown, Courtney Lougheed, Aliza Green, Riley Macdonough, Destiny Griffin, Andrea Merchant, Meghan Houseknect, Madison Dedman and Lindsey Mathis.