LEBANON — On Monday evening, a group of 14 women wearing athletic shorts and sneakers gathered by the fountain at Colburn Park. They held colorful water bottles and chatted with each other in a large circle.
The group was there for the fourth installment of Upper Valley Girls Walk, a free, biweekly event organized by Springfield, Vt., resident Megan Jewell.
“I thought it would be a great way to get some girls together and meet new friends,” Jewell said in an interview last month.
Jewell, an architectural designer working in White River Junction, was partly thinking of herself when coming up with Girls Walk. Having moved to the area last year, she’s no stranger to the challenges of making friends in a new place.
She also loves being outside, and a group walk seemed easy enough to host. She started posting about the walks on her TikTok account, which is how many of the women at Monday’s event found out about it.
After making brief introductions at the Monday walk around 5:45 p.m., Jewell led the group out of the park in the direction of the Northern Rail Trail. The goal was to cover about three miles.
The women split into pairs and trios as they neared the tree-lined trail, about a five minute walk from the park.
Many of them were like Jewell, newcomers to the area looking to make friends with other women.
Lorin Rauch, 27, recently moved to the Upper Valley from Norfolk, Va. so her husband could study at Dartmouth College. While her husband has a built-in social scene on campus, Rauch, who works a remote job for the Navy Federal Credit Union, is more isolated.
“I’m not going to meet people at my house,” she said in an interview on the Monday walk.
Girls Walk came on her radar by way of Jewell’s TikTok account. Rauch had participated in similar events in Norfolk, so she decided to give it a try.
“I love small talk,” she said.
Celeste Fenton, of West Lebanon, also learned about the event through Jewell’s TikTok, which has more than 2,100 followers.
Fenton moved to the area from Colorado last year to take a job as a costume technician in Dartmouth College’s theater department.
Since then, she’s been putting in the work to make new friends, attending social mixers and queer events in White River Junction with the goal of meeting new people at least once a week.
“Some weeks it’s easier than others,” Fenton, 26, said.
Girls Walk appealed to her in part because she prefers walking in a group to walking alone. She doesn’t feel as tired or bored when she has company.
Marae Cates, 23, of White River Junction, also prefers walking in a group for safety reasons. She finds it hard to relax on solo walks, and always keeps one earbud out so she can stay alert.
Going to bars on her own also makes her anxious, which has made it difficult to meet new people and explore White River Junction’s nightlife since moving to the village in March.
When she does go out, it’s always with her hometown friends visiting from southern New Hampshire.
But Girls Walk provided strength in numbers, which has given Cates some comfort. “I feel very safe in the group,” she said.
A “shy person,” Cates was still nervous to show up to the walk alone.
“I’m trying to be more comfortable being uncomfortable,” she said.
Monday’s Girls Walk was one of the smaller groups — they’ve typically drawn 20 to 30 women —but it was also one of the chattier ones, Jewell said.
Although the group is intended to foster friendships, many women seemed happy just to be in each other’s company.
“It’s good to chat with people,” Amber Bardsley, 27, of Lebanon, said.
Jewell, for her part, has met several women to workout with through the group, and her friend, Caitlin Goodrich, always leaves the walks with a new person’s phone number.
Girls Walks will continue in Lebanon through September. Eventually Jewell hopes to expand and organize other events such as wine nights at nearby restaurants.
As Monday’s group returned to the park, about an hour after they departed, Jewell thanked them for showing up.
“I loved it,” Cates said as the group dispersed. That evening she mainly chatted with Jewell at the front of the line, but next time she hopes to slow down and get to know the other women.
“I’m definitely coming back,” she said.
