This story was written by Angela Charsha-Harney. It was published in the February 2021 issue of Brown Deer Living Magazine. 

Since starting the local 501c3 non-profit Girls on the Run with a team of women in 2007, I have been excited about the opportunity for my daughter (only a wish back then!) to take part in this wonderful organization. Sidney joined the world in 2012 and while I was not in a hurry to have her grow up, I was looking forward to having her join a Girls on the Run team. The Girls on the Run mission is “to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.” Important lessons about confidence, kindness, empathy, positive self-talk, making healthy decisions, standing up for others, and giving back to your community are only a few examples of what the girls discuss at practice, all while also focusing on the joy of movement and physical activity. Girls are able to participate when they reach 3rd grade and 2020 was the year Sidney would be eligible. However, COVID-19 made an appearance and with that, full time on-site school was cancelled. The option of hosting Girls on the Run at Wickham Elementary vanished.  

Of course, as a mom that faced the challenge of working from home while helping navigate on-line and eventually homeschooling, I was quite busy but feeling awfully blessed to be able to spend all day with my children. Though, as the school year kicked off, it became more apparent that my kids were starting to miss their friends. We stayed incredibly busy from March-August, but with the start of school, we hunkered down to learn the ropes of education outside school walls.  While on a walk one night, I began to think about how I could incorporate healthy connections while social distancing (not the simplest thing for 3rd grade girls!), and it dawned on me that perhaps I could invite girls from our community to our driveway for healthy dialogue and activity. The more I thought about Sidney’s excitement for the upcoming Girls on the Run season, combined with articles and stories outlining the pandemic’s effect on children’s mental health, the more I was encouraged to attempt to offer an on-site, safe option for Girls on the Run to happen. I read on our chapter’s website, “Girls face social pressures and conflicting messages about how they should act and who they should be. Studies show that by adolescence, girls' confidence drops about twice as much as boys'. Stressors related to COVID-19 have undoubtedly affected girls, between social isolation, anxiety and more limited opportunities for physical activity.” I became more determined to make a difference, and so our story began. The neighborhood Girls on the Run team, “Maplewood Smiles”, was born.  

Though, with everything, there were some caveats. One, I needed to get permission from the Girls on the Run office to become a home site. Two, I needed to secure a couple of assistant coaches.  Three, I needed to get the word out so families would know this was an opportunity for their daughters. Four, I needed to mark the driveway to see how many girls I could safely host, with the goal of keeping the girls 6’ apart for the season. This was going to be interesting and it was becoming a reality very quickly. Permission, check. Assistant coaches (THANK YOU ERICA REIMERS AND TRACY CHARSHA), check. Decision to offer 10 spots so we could safely socially distance, check.  The next step was to reach out to the families.  I was beyond thrilled when we filled our spots within days. However, more and more families reached out with interest and my heart felt heavy with grief to have to say no to their daughters. Maplewood Smiles 2.0 was born.  We decided to host two sets of girls, allowing us to keep the groups smaller and allow all girls that showed interest the opportunity to join. Two teams had officially been filled and we were off and running (pun intended!). 

Together, Erica, Tracy (my mom!) and I planned out and coached for 8 weeks (16 lessons) for 18 of our 3rd-5th grade girls in the community. We ran in the heat, in the rain, and even in the snow. We laughed, we air hugged and air high-fived. We talked about our days, emotions, finding balance, school, our fears, our strengths, our friends and our families. We had a lesson on giving back to our community and chose a community impact project that brought us together to paint kindness rocks (which were placed around our local trails) and collected winter clothing to donate.  We learned so many lessons and Sidney said, “I learned the importance of being kind, helpful, confident and also that we can have fun and run with masks on!”. I’m calling that a win for 2020.  

We celebrated the end of the season on a sunny, 70-degree day on Nov. 7th with a magical 5K that took our girls and their running buddies through the streets of Wickham neighborhoods. You may have witnessed some of our inspirational chalk drawings (special thank you to Erica Reimers and her daughter Cameron for sharing their talents and time with this endeavor). Overall, Maplewood Smiles was a huge success. A well deserving shout out goes to my mom for always saying yes to my requests for help. Erica Reimers was a dream of a co-coach and I’m forever grateful for her willingness to step up, volunteer, and share her beautiful smile and contagious positive energy with our team. Coaching these girls during the pandemic was a true gift. I’m thankful for the time I had to coach and reflect on the important lessons in the curriculum. I am also grateful for the parents who entrusted us to keep their daughters safe, for empowering their daughters to join the team, and especially, for cheering their daughters on as they wrapped up the season to cross the 5K finish line.  Every single girl successfully crossed the finish line with a smile on her face and the joy of this day was a beautiful memory of 2020.