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Winchester High School’s Girls Gotta Run club will be hosting a fundraiser, where profits go towards self-defense classes for girls in Ethiopia.
Girls Gotta Run will hold a self-defense course fundraiser on May 19, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at Winchester High School, with physical education teacher Andria Bremhorst, as instructor.
The class costs $20, and payment is accepted at the event. All proceeds go towards the national Girls Gotta Run Foundation.
The GGRF is a nonprofit that raises funds to educate girls in Ethiopia while also providing them with athletic gear and life skills courses.
The Winchester chapter of GGRF is hosting the self-defense courses. The chapter, which is a high school club, was started by Lucy Kenna this year.
Kenna first encountered GGRF when she participated in one of their walkathons with her sister a few years ago. Last year, she decided to organize her own walkathon as part of the organization’s annual tradition for International Day of the Girl.
Afterwards, she wanted to bring GGRF to Winchester, so she started a club at the high school.
“It’s a really nice way to feel like we can make an impact on the lives of girls who are in a really different kind of situation than us,” Kenna said.
The club has around 30 members. It hosted various events and activities throughout the school year, including a pen pal letter exchange with girls in Ethiopia.
The fundraiser
The idea for the coming fundraiser came when Kenna realized that both the high school and GGRF have self-defense courses. She liked the idea of connecting the fundraiser to what it would be funding.
She asked Bremhorst, who teaches the high school’s self-defense program, to be the instructor.
This will be the second time this course is offered. The first class, held April 14, raised $300. Kenna hopes that by the end of the second day, the club will have raised $400.
The first class had 10 attendees, most of whom were mothers and sisters of club members. Kenna is hoping to get around 15 attendees for this upcoming class.
During the first class, a few of the club members acted as Bremhorst’s teaching assistants.
“It was really cool to see [the club members] not only know their skills, but also be able to help out others,” Bremhorst said.
For GGRF having more chapters means being able to help more girls. Blaine Kebede, the executive director of GGRF, said the funding is a big help to grassroots organizations like GGRF, but the visibility and awareness the chapters bring are equally important.
“It’s really keeping our mission alive in the sense that our goal is that we want to be able to empower young girls to be change makers in their communities,” Kebede said. “Seeing young girls who are doing that here is quite inspiring.”
For Kenna, knowing the club is making a difference is the highlight of the experience.
“It was really fun to see that after we made these fundraisers and put so much effort into them, there were real life results,” she said.
Kenna added she hopes the club will start holding fundraisers like this as annual events and host guest speakers.
Tavishi Chattopadhyay is a journalism student at Boston University.
