LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE: Campers supported each other as they would cheer them into the room to show off their talent and skills.

THOMASVILLE — To most people, the thought of running can be dreadful. For Thomas County Middle School’s Girls on the Run club, running is a form of empowerment. Out on the track and in the gym, they’re learning valuable lessons about exercise and emotions.

Girls on the Run is a non-profit organization founded in 1996 in Charlotte. The club’s initiative was to instill confidence and friendship in young girls, while also aiming to support their mental and physical health through running.

This program has grown exponentially in the past decade, with the addition of South Georgia headquarters in Valdosta. This is TCMS’ upcoming second year in the program, with this week marking their first ever summer camp.

This week, TCMS staff joined their GOTR members at the middle school and got to work. Due to bad weather Monday, the girls practiced inside, but on Tuesday, the girls ran on the practice field and did sprints.

While the main activity tends to be running at Camp GOTR, a large majority of the work they do also focuses on teamwork and character-building. During camp Thursday, the girls circled around after working on an activity about jealousy and competition. They were having to verbalize their strengths and weaknesses when it came to the activity and jealousy, in general.

By self-reflecting, which they each had an entire journal dedicated to, they learned how they improved or could improve in whatever activity they had just completed.

“They’re learning how to be a friend, how to make a friend and how to be positive in everything they do,” Allycyn Dukes, TCMS’ paraprofessional and GOTR camp coach, said. “They’re learning their inner strengths.”

This is Dukes’ first year participating as a coach, but she said that there’s a year-round program outside the summer camp, in which the coaches “get to know the girls during the school year,” and get more time to coach and encourage them. At this camp, the girls and coaches are almost all previously active in and familiar with the program.

Just before lunch Thursday, the 11 present girls, along with their male member Walker Eason, were working on comic strips. They were instructed to illustrate how they had or would resolve conflict with a friend.

Brooklyn Diane Blodgett said that she was working on drawing a conflict from a couple months ago, in which she was frustrated at her friends and needed alone time. With activities like this, GOTR has helped her work through these conflicts and emotionally altogether.

“I understand that I can make a lot more friends and have a lot more friends for a longer period of time now that I’ve been a part of this program for a while,” Blodgett said.

Rylan Dunn, another GOTR member, said that she and her friends would also fight a lot this year. Through activities like these, she learned that they “can take that conflict and change it.”

“Maybe we can talk about it, so we can become better friends,” Dunn said, on learning how to communicate and work through conflict.

This is just one example of the numerous, holistic activities these girls work on every day. At the end of the week, the girls are hosting a big finale for their parents and family to see, where they will demonstrate their physical and character-building lessons.

At this program, they will be welcoming their loved ones and coaches to their “circus,” where they will demonstrate gymnastics, juggling, comedy and being themselves, in their most confident and wildest forms. In their sneak peak, cartwheels, puns and back handsprings were finely-tuned and ready for an audience.

Other staff members like Beverly Jackson, the liaison between GOTR and TCMS, and Rena Crew, a 5th grade teacher at the school, worked to bring the program to TCMS. Crew has participated in GOTR for numerous years, at private schools and in Thomasville. Upon arrival last year, she realized the school didn’t have the running program and immediately had it running.

Crew currently coaches the two teams of 20 girls, as so many wanted to sign up that they had to form separate teams, with their middle school team being deemed the “Heart and Sole” team.

“We try to teach them, even in the short time together, life skills,” Crew said. “Girls on the Run is about the person as a whole, not just one aspect of them. So we want them to know that their physical [health] is important—their emotional, their social.”

“It’s kind of like this whole wheel and all the little pieces of the wheel connect,” Crew said. “We feel more complete and whole when we know that we’re doing all those things.”

Crew said the girls will also have a gallery walk, in addition to their circus, where they will show their parents and family their activities like “a recipe for a good friend” and their personalized awards for friend of the year.

The camp was a one week session in June, but the program is open to girls in 3rd grade through middle school year-round.