GoGirlGo! Boston Grant Award Winner, The Blackstone Community Center
MySouthEnd.com,
Thursday, August 14, 2008 -
GoGirlGo!, a nationwide initiative designed to motivate girls to be more physically active, recently awarded a grant to the Blackstone Community Center on West Brookline Street. The grant, part of a $2.6 million nationwide grant fund, will help create and sustain programs targeting local girls that will encourage them to become more physically active, to help them deal with issues of weight and body image, and to help them make better choices about their health. As part of the grant, GoGirlGo! will also provide Blackstone with education materials designed to help them create better curriculums for girls ages 8 to 18. For 8 to 12 year olds, the materials include a GoGirls! Guide to Life, featuring personal stories from female athletes who have made healthy choices, and accompanying GoGirl scrapbook; for the 13 to 18 year olds, the GoGirlGo! Ambassador Leadership Program provides them with college scholarship and team grant incentives to individuals and programs that advocate physical activity among their peers.
This grant is particularly valuable in Boston, where studies have shown that female high school students are more likely to be overweight than the national average.