FAB Girls 5k Challenge Program

The FAB Girls 5K Challenge Program is a free 12 week running and life skills program, that challenges youth girls in grades 6 through 8 to train for and complete a 5K run. Our program combines the power of sport with a goal-setting framework. This provides youth girls with an empowering environment that encourages them to become more physically active while developing important life skills such as goal setting and resilience. The FAB Girls 5K Challenge Program is designed to enhance self-confidence, cultivate peer friendships, and build supportive relationships with our coaches.

Our program runs from March to June each year. FAB girls and volunteer female coaches meet once a week for 90 minutes. Each 90-minute session includes a meet and greet, ice breaker, warm up, running drills, games, cool down, snack, and goal setting discussion. Additionally, throughout the 12 weeks FAB girls and coaches have the opportunity to participate in 3 fun community running events.

The goals of our program are:

• to encourage youth girls to become more physically active, and
• to help develop goal setting skills that can be used to pursue future goals

Our ultimate goal is to inspire youth girls to ‘dream big, live big’ by providing them with the skills and the confidence to live an empowered life.

We are big on removing barriers to participation, so in addition to our program being free, each FAB girl will also receive:

• FAB shirt
• FAB goal setting journal
• New pair of running shoes
• Healthy snacks

Entry and transportation to and from all program events

Eligibility

Any person who identifies as female in grade 6-8 and lives within 3 kilometres of one of our program locations is eligible to register for our program. Each location is limited to 20 FAB girls on a first come first serve basis. Priority is given to returning FAB girls.

The FAB Girls 5K Challenge Program is currently offered in the following locations:

Important Information About COVID

Due to current Covid-19 restrictions, we will be launching our 2021 FAB Girls 5K Challenge Program virtually via Zoom on the same day and at the same time our in-person program would normally occur. We hope to transition to in-person during the spring, if/when public health guidelines change.

In anticipation of transition to in-person programming, we have reduced capacity at each location to from 20 to 8 FAB girls and 2 coaches, for a maximum of 10 people at each location and 80 FAB girls in total. We expect in-person programming will be 100% outdoors with access to an indoor washroom. If we are able to transition to an in-person program, we will communicate all details and policies to parents/guardians two weeks in advance of the change.