Hanover
Years later Olivia, now 11, is returning the favor. On Sunday, she and her mother, Kelly Harlow, participated in the 2018 CHaD Hero, the annual road racing fundraiser held on the Dartmouth College green. The Grafton pair raised close to $1,200 for the children’s hospital.
“We’re always giving back to the hospital, because they were there when we needed it the most and helped us through a hard time,” said Harlow, a nursing assistant at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center who currently is in school at River Valley Community College studying to be a registered nurse.
Olivia and her mother were two of about 375 registered athletes, parents and coaches who ran with the nonprofit Finding Our Stride on Sunday. Olivia, who participated on behalf of her school, the Indian River School in West Canaan, said she’s been running since she was 5 years old.
“I like it,” she said of running. “You get exercise. It calms you down.”
Finding Our Stride, founded in 2011, helps turn teachers or parents into running coaches and pairs them with a group of student-athletes in underprivileged elementary and middle schools in the Upper Valley, with a mission of building fitness, self-esteem and teamwork. The organization finances an eight-week after-school running season and funds registration fees for community-based races in both the fall and spring seasons.
It currently works with 13 schools in the region in the fall season and 17 in the spring. At least 30 percent of the schools’ student bodies are on free or reduced lunch programs.
Jenny Williams, founder and executive director of Finding Our Stride, who also works as a joint venture partner at Norwich Partners LLC — a hotel development and investment company that runs hotels along Route 120 — said she already has seen results in the schools her organization has been able to reach.
“We’re looking for kids to be more active,” Williams said by phone on Thursday. “We’ve seen increases in days per week kids are active, to five or six days a week; increases in running without stopping; increases in those able to run; decreases in screen time; increases in healthy food choices.
“We’re really looking for which kids can run the longest, who are competitive against middle schoolers,” she added. “Kids in the program have done really well regionally, which is great. But I think (competitive running) is a byproduct of our primary goal: We want to see kids lose weight and find a love for running.”
The program is funded by Norwich Partners through the Children’s Fund of the Upper Valley, the company’s philanthropic arm. It has donated more than $1 million to children’s charities since 2005, according to its website.
Finding Our Stride had more than 100 people registered in last year’s CHaD Hero, a series of races that serves as an annual fundraiser. One year later, the group has more than doubled its participation; on Sunday, it was the biggest group represented at the event. As of Sunday morning, it had raised $29,958 for CHaD, a sum that ranked second only to the amount raised by Dartmouth’s Psi Upsilon fraternity.
Rick Currier, Finding Our Stride’s head coach at Indian River, said the program has helped get kids out of their athletic shells by introducing them to training and exercise at an early age.
“We do two different sets of workouts, an ‘A’ workout and a ‘B’ workout,” Currier said on Friday. “Our ‘A’ workout is for our kids who intend to go to races; they’re trying to get in shape for racing. Our ‘B’ workout is for our kids who are there; it’s something to do after school. It does get them outside. It’s not nearly as intense. … We have some kids that don’t go to any races. I tell them that’s fine.”
Currier’s son, Gunner, and some of his friends are avid runners; Gunner, 11, has broken several records for his age group, earning his first at 8 years old in the New Hampshire 12K in 2015. He also runs for the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics program, but said running at his school with his friends makes it more fun.
“I like that it’s not like other sports,” Gunner said of his love for running. “You’re not kicking a ball around or running from base to base or running trying not to get tackled. You’re just running to run.”
Gunner finished second out of 95 boys in the 12-and-under age group and 27th overall in the 5K on Sunday.
Richard Hambrick, Finding Our Stride’s head coach at Piermont Village School, said on Sunday that he has seen nothing but positives in his school’s first season with the program. Hambrick is a triathlete who moved to the region with his family from Atlanta within the last year and a half.
“As a small school, we were looking for a program that could give the small-school atmosphere more of an ability to take advantage of programs the larger schools have, like running programs and other sports,” said Hambrick, who has 28 kids involved in Finding Our Stride at the Piermont school. “We struggle, because of population, getting sizable teams together. So we reached out to Finding Our Stride.
“Running is the basis of all sports. Every sport builds off of running,” he added. “When you don’t have a solid running base, you don’t have a solid foundation in which to build all the other sports on. … I’ve already seen, and I’m excited to see, the improvements to come.”
Williams said she would like to see her program be adopted in more Upper Valley schools while at the same time fine-tuning what the organization already does. Finding Our Stride helps fund the program at new member schools — about $3,000 a year for coaches’ stipends and registration fees for races — eventually helping them apply for grants to become self-sufficient. Indian River, Currier said, is close to self-sufficiency.
Until then, Williams said, she is confident in her organization’s work. Surveys conducted before and after the eight-week program have illustrated an increase in physical activity and in endurance, some of the benefits Williams said she’s proud of.
It’s helped young athletes like Olivia Parla find a healthy habit, one she hopes to continue. She finished ninth out of 107 girls in the 12-and-under division in the 5K race on Sunday. Harlow, her mother, said having the program at her daughter’s school has helped as well.
“We have a really good team, really good coaches,” Harlow said. “They really care about their future and their running ability.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.