Tag Archives: running

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Girls On The Run Closes In On Goal

Miss Michigan visited Girls On The Run during the fall season.

Asked how the spring season of Girls On The Run has gone, council director Jackie Kippen says “it’s been incredible.” She was expecting about 1000 girls to participate, between sites at YMCA branches and at local schools; instead, more than 1200 signed up. Between the girls, their coaches, and parents and friends who want to run with them, they’re expecting around 2,000 at the 5K that marks the finish line of the season. The 5K is May 19 at Oakland University, and represents the achievement of one of the Girls On the Run goals that the girls in the program have been working toward since the beginning of the season.

The other, of course, is to develop their self-respect and capacity for healthy living. The core of Girls on the Run  isn’t so much the running, Jackie notes, as the activities the girls do that help foster self-esteem, show them how to resist peer pressure, and teach ways of resolving conflicts and relating to each other positively.

Jackie’s seeing the magic of Girls On the Run close up this year — she’s volunteered as a coach at REACH Academy in Warren. “I am more committed to the program than ever” she says, adding with a laugh “I drank the Kool-Aid!”

Over the nearly ten weeks her team has been together, she’s been noticing the lessons of Girls On The Run really taking shape. “I’ve seen the girls use conflict management skills at practice,” she says. “If they are mad at someone or someone cut them off while they were running I’ve seen them talk it out  — that has been amazing.” They’re also cheering each other on and encouraging each other to participate in the conversations as well, and have built a lot of trust in each other. “They have started to really open up,” Jackie says. “The more discussions we have, the more they talk about things they wouldn’t normally talk about with other people.”

Coaching helps her understand the challenges her fellow coaches are facing as well and makes her more effective at working with them, she says. Often when a coach calls her with a problem, she’s faced it herself as well and can talk it through with them. “I’m not just telling them what to do, I’m living it with them,” she says.

Overall, it’s been a great experience working with the girls this year, she says, and has reinforced what an amazing program Girls On the Run is. “Its been an awesome experience seeing he confidence the girls develop,” she says.

 

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New Neighbor Helps Girls On The Run

Sometimes an interaction can have wide-ranging impact, not only on the people involved but on the community around them. That was the case with Jeff Lambert, president and managing partner of Lambert, Edwards and Associates. The public relations firm recently moved their offices from Troy to the block of Broadway in Downtown Detroit that also is the location of the Boll Family YMCA. That move was catalyzed in part, Lambert says, by a visit to the Boll.

Lambert, a longtime board member of the Y in West Michigan, wanted to make a donation to provide swim lessons to needy children. He connected with the team running Detroit Swims, which has the goal of providing swim lessons to every child in Detroit, and gave a $10,000 donation. The Boll staff held an event to thank him, and Lambert was taken with the activity and energy in the neighborhood surrounding the Boll.

“That was my first introduction to that area,” Lambert says. “Fast forward a year and half or so, and now we’re neighbors.”

Lambert, Edwards and Associates moved into an abandoned office suite that is now a vibrant, open plan office that’s drawn notice for its sports theme.

The firm wanted to mark their new space in a special way, so they crafted a creative donation to Girls On the Run. At Christmastime, they gave each of their clients a gift certificate for a pair of shoes from Wolverine Worldwide, which makes Saucony running shoes as well as iconic brands such as Hush Puppies, Merrell and Stride Rite. When clients redeemed the certificate, Lambert, Edwards and Associates donated a pair of shoes to Girls on the Run. “We celebrated our new offices by paying it forward,”Lambert says.

All told, Lambert, Edwards and Associates donated 100 pairs of shoes. Many of the young women who participate in Girls On the Run can’t afford quality running shoes, so the donation will allow a lot more girls access to the program. It teaches girls about resisting peer pressure, raising self-esteem and making healthy choices wile also training for a 5K race.

As a longtime Y member and board member, Lambert believes in the Y’s commitment to all forms of healthy living and to a diverse community.

“The Y is a great example of a public/private partnership,” Lambert says. “It’s evolved from the traditional gym and swim to being a community advocate for everyone from the youngest to the oldest members of the community. It touches all aspects of a person’s wellness, and that’s something we really believe in.”

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Y Rallies Around Trainer

Everyone faces adversity in their life, and how a person responds to that tells a lot about who they are.  Jamie Stec, a personal trainer at the Macomb YMCA, proved herself to be strong not just physically but emotionally as well when she faced a frightening breast cancer diagnosis last July, and didn’t let it stop her from working with clients or keeping up with her own exercise routine.

Despite the fatigue and nausea of cancer treatment, Jamie kept coming in to work with her clients as often as she could “still rocking the bald head,” she says.  She finished up radiation and still has some surgery in front of her, and will be on medication for years to control the cancer, but all things considered she’s doing very well. she says. She’s back to training for the Detroit International Marathon this fall and knocked out a 14-mile training run just this past weekend.

Jamie believes that already being fit and healthy helped her stay active throughout her treatment, a fact she tries to pass along to her clients now. “Being a distance runner as well, I was no stranger to stress on my body and no stranger to pain,” she says. “I knew there was a finish line,  it would just take me awhile to get there.”

Her clients, as well as other Y members, told her how much she inspired them by continuing to work out even while she was facing such challenges. “They would tell me ‘if you can do this, I don’t have any excuses.’”

Her Y family stepped up to help her after her diagnosis. “I would not have been taken care of the same way if I worked  at a gym,” she says. “Because I worked at a place that cares about its employees, its members, and the community, I was very well taken care of.” The staff gave her children a week of day camp, so she could recover from surgery without worrying about them. A friend took over working with her small group training class and refused to take the fee, asking that it still go to Jamie.  And she especially notes that her boss, Wellness Director Christina Wollcott, was incredibly supportive.

Her family is very involved at the Y: Her husband is a triathlete and trains there, and her children are in Y sports. When she was undergoing her education to become a personal trainer, she interned at the Y, and volunteered there when she was done until they could hire her.

As her recovery progresses, she is looking at it as an opportunity to discover her true strength.

“Cancer really can adjust your priorities,” she says. “It’s been interesting, but I find I myself, as I progress through all of my treatments, finding out exactly how strong I am.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Run To Honor Y Worker’s Memory

The community of people that gather at a YMCA is often referred to as “YMCA family,” because being part of the Y is so much more than just belonging to a place to work out, go to camp, or learn to swim. And sometimes, the Y truly is family.

When Breeana Dixit was killed in a car accident near Western Michigan University’s campus in February, it hit the Lakeshore Family YMCA very hard. She’d worked in the Y’s childcare facility in high school and early in her college career, and her mother, sister, aunt and cousin all work at the Y as well. She had an impact on just about everyone there, members and staff, and her loss was a huge blow to all who knew her or her family.

Bree (as she was known) was a recent WMU graduate, loved working with children, and also loved running. “It was an important part of her life, as well as working with kids,” says Rose Cesario, the school-age childcare director for the Lakeshore Y. To honor her memory, the staff at the Lakeshore Y, along with a group of Bree’s friends, have organized a 5K run in her honor which will be held on April 27, the Y’s Healthy Kids Day. The annual event will be dedicated to Bree this year. Proceeds from the run will benefit the Y’s Strong Kids Campaign and the Ted Lindsay Foundation for Autism.

A tree will be planted in memory of Bree at the event before the run. The tree planting is at 10:45 on April 27, and the race starts at 11:00. In order to allow more people to participate, the race will not be timed and is for everyone from beginning walkers to experienced runners. Field day activities will run from the start of the race until 1 p.m. as part of the Y’s Healthy Kids Day. There will be sack races, water relays, cone relays, and an exercise relay, among other fun events.

The “Bree’z Through the Shores” run is planned to become an annual event. Registration is $20 for children and $30 for adults and is ongoing at Active.com.

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Miss Michigan Pays a Visit to Girls on The Run

Girls on the Run are reaching the height of their fall season with their run at Kensington Metropark at 9 a.m. Sunday. About 550 girls in grades 3 through 8 at various school and YMCA-based sites have been training since September to reach their goal of running a 5K, and learning some important lessons along the way.

Girls On The Run’s mission is to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self respect and healthy living. Girls not only develop the strength to run three miles, but they develop emotional and mental strength as well, and the pride that comes with reaching a goal.

The team at the Lakeshore Family YMCA had a special visitor to one of their final practices before the big run: Miss Michigan Angela Venditti. Her platform is keeping kids off drugs, which fits well with the Girls On The Run mission, so she visited  to talk to the girls about goals, peer pressure and what it’s really like to be Miss Michigan.

She’s a friend of volunteer coach Elizabeth Alloush, who asked her to come and speak to the girls. Angela, who was as glamorous as a pageant winner could be, wore her crown and sash while she chatted with the team. Despite the glitter, she was as warm and friendly to the girls as a big sister. She even let each girl (and a few of the adult coaches!) try on her crown.

One topic she addressed was the importance of setting goals like they did in Girls On The Run. In her case, she said, she really wanted to win Miss Michigan, and entered about 14 local pageants before she made it to the statewide one. Then, she did the Miss Michigan pageant three times before she finally won on her fourth try. She’ll be competing in the Miss America pageant in January.

She also talked about resisting peer pressure, something Girls on the Run talks a lot about as well. “Girls are strong,” she says. “You have to remember how strong you are and that you don’t have to do those things” that friends might pressure them to do. She even ran through a few role-plays with the girls about what they would do if a friend pressured them to do something they knew they shouldn’t.

Another message of Girls on the Run is the importance of positive self image– they talk about unplugging the cord that feeds them messages that tell them they aren’t good enough and plugging in the Girls on The Run cord that does. That’s something Angela endorses as well, and told the girls that setting goals like they did in Girls On The Run can help them believe in themselves. “Sometimes we doubt ourselves and don’t think we can, but when we do the hard work, we know we can,” she told the girls.

Girls On The Run director Jackie Kippen said she was just thrilled to have Miss Michigan visit. “She spent so much time with them, and I think they really liked it,” she said.

Girls On The Run provides positive role models in many ways, and the visit from Miss Michigan was a particularly exciting one for the girls who’ve trained so hard. Mary Jennings, 9, has been a veteran of three Girls on The Run seasons and says she likes the program because it lets her hang out with her friends that she’s made, and it’s made her a better runner. “I like it because we group up and talk with our friends,” she says.

The Girls On The Run spring season starts in March. Stay tuned for more information about the spring run and how to join or coach a team.

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New Mom Gets Healthy With Help From Trainer

It’s amazing what people can do when they believe they can. And sometimes it takes someone else’s belief in the them to spur them on to accomplish their goals.

That’s what happened for Dani Keith-Marchment. Like so many women, she struggled with her weight for more than a decade. Each year she’d put on a little more until she found herself over 200 pounds.

After having a baby in 2011, she topped out at 247 pounds. Knowing she needed to get control of her weight, she joined the Macomb YMCA with a friend in June of that year and lost 20 pounds working out on her own.

Then she met trainer Dion Kimbrough. She started taking small group classes with him, and then began 1:1 sessions. The pounds started to peel off — and more importantly, her mindset began to change right along with her body. “I found that I was physically & mentally capable of more than I ever gave myself credit for,” she says. She ran her first 5K in June, which she never thought she could or would do, and now has committed to training for a half marathon.

“I have learned and still continue to learn so many things from Dion and learn things about myself as well,” Dani says. “He always has me focused on what my next goal is all of the time, which helps me stay on track.”

She’s lost 75 pounds since December of last year, for a total of 95 pounds. She credits Dion and her friend, Crystal, who convinced her to join the Y, for their help and inspiration.

And now, she wants to share her own story to inspire others. “I look and feel like an entirely different person. I feel as though this weight loss has opened up so many more opportunities for me,” she says.

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Community Runs for One of Their Own

It was a news story that has transfixed the community: a father dead, a mother and son critically injured, allegedly at the hands of their oldest son and brother.

But, of course, the Cipriano family is not merely a headline: they are people, people suffering unimaginable pain. To the members and staff of the Farmington YMCA, mother Rose Cipriano is also one of their own. Rose was a trainer a the Y and swam on a master’s swim team.

The Cipriano family was well-known and loved in the community long before tragedy struck, and so friends wanted to do something to help the family through this difficult time. April Tini is one of those friends, and along with Jenny Birmelin, Rose’s swim coach, they settled on the idea of a run to raise money for a trust for the Cipriano children.

“They were very active in the Farmington community and beyond; they knew so many people and touched so many lives with their warm ways and community involvement, that everyone around town wanted to do something to help the family during this difficult time. The Cipriano 5K turned out to be the solution!” April says.

The final tally is still being counted, but thanks to generous sponsors and entry fees, the race generated in the neighborhood of $60,000 for the Cipriano Children’s Fund.

The race was a tribute as much as a fundraiser; Rose’s son Tanner gave a speech at the beginning of the race and designed the logos for the shirts. Jenny says one of her favorite moments was the evening of the race, when “slowly, I watched the Y’s parking lot go from 50, to 100, to 200, and climb to 2,094 participants and another hundred or two volunteers and spectators.” Many participants didn’t know the Cipriano family but were touched by their story and wanted to show support.

According to Farmington Y senior program director Leana Parker, a volunteer committee of about 35 people coalesced around getting the run together with only 5 weeks of planning. They were able to give away 150 prizes to runners courtesy of their sponsors. “It was very awesome to see the amount of people willing to help,” she says.

One thing that sets the Y apart from other places is that it is a true community — people care for each other in very real ways. So it’s not surprising that they stepped up to help one of their own. April Tini says they went above and beyond to help honor their coworker and friend. “The staff at the YMCA was truly amazing, doing anything and everything that was asked of them….they went the extra mile to help from every angle, and they jumped at the chance. They were terrific!”

Jenny says Leana and Pam Horetski were “amazing volunteers — they responded to our dozens of emails all day long, attended all of our planning committee meetings on Monday nights and also answered the hundreds of calls/emails that they were fielding from interested Y members. In my view, Leana should be the next Employee of the Month and be given that parking space she deserves.”

When a tragedy like the Ciprano family’s happens, people want to help in some way. The Run for Rose gave the community a way to show support whether they know the family or not, and used the power of the YMCA community to do it.

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Downriver Run Racks Up The Years

For the 35th year, around 400 people will be jogging along the banks of the Detroit River this evening for the annual Downriver 5K to support the YMCA.

The run has been an effort of many people throughout the years, but Downriver Y board member Fred Karn was one of the runners in the very first race, and shortly thereafter joined the board and has been a board member ever since.

The run began as a way to capitalize on the running craze of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Karn said, and just a handful of runners turned out that first year. Runners took a back road and then ran along alleys in Wyandotte so the city would not have to close the streets. Back then, the Downriver Y was a shared brick building on Fort Street in Wyandotte; today, it’s a beautiful, huge facility on Northline Road in Southgate.

They’ve tried may different ways to attract people and make the race successful over the years. Now, 35 years later, the run is still in downtown Wyandotte, but much like the Y itself the course is much nicer. Runners use the golf course at BASF Park, which offers beautiful views of the Detroit River and passing sailboats and freighters. “it’s very picturesque, and really very special,” Karn says. It’s a family affair, too; there is a quarter mile run for the youngest kids, a mile run for older kids, and a 5K for the adults.

There is always a honorary chair of the run who helps draw participants, which has ranged from a state championship-winning hockey team coach to a wheelchair athlete. The race also brings in funds from sponsorships, including support from longtime sponsors BASF, Henry Ford Health System; Lincoln Park Rotary Club and KSP Insurance (Karn’s firm), along with Citizens Insurance Co.

All this adds up to thousands of dollars worth of scholarships for the Strong KIds Campaign, Karn says. Race day was cool and rainy, but they’re hoping for a good turnout to bring together the Downriver communities and support Y programs for deserving families.

 

 

 

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Girls on The Run Finishes Strong

More than 800 girls and their coaches, parents and friends descended on Oakland University’s Rochester Hills campus last weekend for the Girls on The Run 5K.

The run is a culmination of months of training for the girls who spent the spring participating in either the Girls on the Run program for ages 8-10 or the Girls on Track program, which reaches middle school age girls. The girls meet twice a week to do training runs, but the focus goes far beyond exercise. Led by volunteer coaches, the girls also learn about self-esteem, stress management, and being true to themselves, among other life lessons.The Girls on the Run philosophy is to teach girls to Honor Their Bodies, Celebrate their Voices, Embrace their Gifts and Activate Their Power

The Y sponsors the program locally; Ashleigh Schiffler directs it from her office at the Plymouth YMCA. Several programs happen at local schools, but many of the local Y branches host teams as well.

While the unseasonably warm weather on race day provided some hurdles, overall it went very well, Ashleigh says. Girls and their families and coaches enjoyed face-painting and hairdo stations, refreshments and other fun things in addition to the race. And most importantly, it showed hundred of young girls the importance of goal setting and gave them a taste of what they can accomplish if they set their minds to something.