Community Spotlight: Girls on the Run (Western MA)
Meet our February 2026 Community Spotlight organization: Girls on the Run (Western MA)
When was your organization founded and for what purpose was it established?
GOTR Western MA was founded in 2015 and has served 13,000 girls across Western MA since its start. GOTR inspires girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident using fun, experience-based curricula that creatively integrates running. GOTR is the only national physical activity-based, positive youth development program for girls with a research-based curriculum, trained coaches, and a commitment to serving all girls.
GOTR underscores the important connection between physical and emotional health and empowers adolescent girls to build healthy physical and mental habits that last a lifetime. Evidence shows that GOTR makes a stronger impact than organized sports and physical education programs in teaching life skills, demonstrating that strategies for managing emotions, resolving conflict, helping others, and making intentional decisions are optimized when explicitly taught. The program’s unique, intentional suite of curricula is designed to enhance girls’ social, psychological, and physical skills and behaviors to successfully navigate life experiences through an emphasis on the development of competence, confidence, connection, character, caring, and contribution in young girls.
Trained, caring, and qualified coaches deliver the life skills curriculum by guiding small teams of girls through twice-a-week lessons that promote social-emotional learning concurrently with physical activity. The program culminates with girls positively impacting their communities through a service project and completing a celebratory, non-competitive 5K event, providing the framework for confidence through accomplishment and to be the author of her story.
We offer a fall and spring season and each season brings together all teams for a celebratory 5K. These 5Ks occur on college campuses and draw more than 3,500 runners and spectators. This spring season, the 5K will be held at UMass Amherst on June 6.
Learn more about their mission and vision
How would you describe the impact of the work your organization does?
Alarmingly, the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021, showed 53% of girls experienced feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness. The same study reported that 1 in 3 girls are seriously considering attempting suicide – up nearly 60% from a decade ago. At the same time, a Pew Research study published in 2023 shows mental health tops the list of worries that U.S. parents express about their kids’ well-being. In that survey, four-in-ten U.S. parents said they are extremely or very worried about their children struggling with anxiety or depression.
Physical activity is a critical but often overlooked tool to support both the physical and mental health of children and adolescents aged 6-17 years. It is linked to long-term physical health, improved academic performance, lower levels of anxiety and depression, and more. Despite these well-documented benefits, only 16% of girls met the guideline of 60 minutes of physical activity a day, highlighting a gap in access and engagement for girls.
GOTR directly addresses these issues affecting the community through three unique, research-based programs: Girls on the Run (3rd-5th grade), Heart & Sole (6th-8th), and Camp GOTR (offered during the summer). Each is designed with an emphasis on the development of confidence and life skills that are used long after the program’s conclusion. The U.S. Surgeon General exemplified GOTR programs in “Physical Activity: An Untapped Resource to Address Our Nation’s Mental Health Crisis Among Children and Adolescents.”
GOTR provides programming that is pertinent and impactful to the current needs of girls. Hearing from participants is a critical element to the program development process and through an assessment with the girl voice at the center, GOTR discovers what is relevant, needed, and wanted. 96% of participants reported they could talk about their life and share examples, reinforcing the positive impact GOTR provides girls in becoming the leaders of their lives and powerful forces for good.
For more details, read a recent independent study
What program or project are you most excited about developing/expanding over the coming years, and why?
We are continuing to expand across the 4 Western MA counties.
See which schools GOTR currently serves
What is one simple thing an individual can do to make a difference in the lives of the folks you serve
Volunteering for GOTR is a great way to give back to the community. Volunteers can be coaches, volunteer for one of our 5Ks or join a committee. Donations also change the lives of girls in the community as they allow more girls to participate.
