Group focuses on physical activity, empowerment

A school librarian and family practice physician have laced up physical activity, personal development and teamwork in a new group for girls.

Alli Mitchell, a Kalispell Middle School teacher-librarian, and Mona Cuthbert, a Kalispell and Lakeside physician, have brought national group Girls on the Run to the Flathead Valley.

“It’s an empowerment group for third- through fifth-grade girls,” Mitchell said, adding that girls from around the valley are invited to join.

Cuthbert added, “Running is a big component of it.”

But girls don’t have to be track stars or even runners to join. Running games are an avenue to teach interactive lessons in topics such as self-esteem, confidence, connectedness and potential, while encouraging physical fitness, according to Mitchell and Cuthbert.

Coaches will lead girls in running games and lessons for 10 weeks, building up to an end goal of girls completing a non-competitive 5K.

“There’s a sense of accomplishment and setting goals,” Cuthbert said.

Lessons cover three main topics, according to www.girlsontherun.org. Girls will explore lessons in “understanding ourselves; valuing relationships and teamwork; and understanding how we connect with, and shape the world at large.”

“Usually there’s a theme for the day and a lesson where girls meet together and talk in small groups,” Cuthbert said.

Girls will talk about age-appropriate issues relevant in their lives, such as how to take care of their body, healthy eating, how to be a good friend, and skills and strategies to handle social pressures such as gossip or bullying.

“How to be a friend is one of the amazing skills that’s not always taught, not always modeled,” Mitchell said.

Cuthbert gave one example of a running activity where a girl would run a lap to different stations where a coach would write letters on her arm to spell out a word such as “beauty.”

“The girls try to figure out what it spells and the lesson leading up to this is, what does beauty mean. How does media portray beauty,” Cuthbert said.

Participants will also look at giving back to the community and coming up with a service project.

Both Mitchell and Cuthbert are runners, which drew them to attend a national Girls on the Run training, but the pair didn’t know each other at the time. When Mitchell returned from the training she called the program headquarters in North Carolina to find out if anyone from the Flathead was interested in starting a team and was connected with Cuthbert.

Mitchell saw the program as a unique program that “looks at the whole child.” Mitchell said she wanted to bring the program to Kalispell when thinking about her two daughters growing up in a society under the pressures to look or act a certain way in order to achieve self-worth.

Cuthbert, also a mother of a daughter, was interested in Girls on the Run from a physician’s perspective.

“I see a lot of things happen to women in my practice when they don’t have these tools as young girls — depression, eating disorders, relationship choices. If we can make a difference early I’m all about prevention,” Cuthbert said. “I want to give them the tools they need at an early age so they can better handle situation as they grow.”

Certified volunteer coaches are trained in CPR and have gone through background checks.

Girls will attend sessions twice a week for an hour and a half. The spring program will begin around Feb. 20 and go through the beginning of May. The training culminates in a 5K community run hosted by Flathead Valley Community College and sponsored by Sykes’.

Registration is open Jan. 16-30. People may register online at http://www.gotrflathead.org/. Cost is $150. Scholarships are available. For more information email info@gotrflathead.org.

Reporter Hilary Matheson can be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.