In 2000 the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Board of Trustees met to review the impact of their work. The team was celebrating the research that revealed how far we had come; when the Foundation was created, one in 27 girls was physically active. Thirty years later the statistics reported that one in three girls was physically active. Founder Billie Jean King raised the question, “What about those other two girls?”
The reality is one of them is completely sedentary, and the other gets no more than 30 minutes of physical activity a week. GoGirlGo! was launched in order to increase participation opportunities so that all girls can experience the positive impact that physical activity has on a girl’s life. Research has proven that girls and women who are physically active, regardless of their level or ability, have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression.
The GoGirlGo! Education and Grant Program was launched in 2001 and has been working to increase participation opportunities so that all girls can experience the positive impacts of physical activity. In 2004, fundraising and activism components were added to GoGirlGo!, followed by community initiatives, first in Atlanta in November 2004, then in Chicago (February 2005), San Antonio (November 2006) and Boston (November 2007).