Two local school administrators have recently taken up a new extracurricular activity: a position on the board of directors for Girls on the Run of Nassau County.
East Williston school Superintendent Elaine Kanas and Herricks school board President Nancy Feinstein were appointed to their posts in August.
They will help bring the program to more area schools to help girls in third through eighth grade build self-confidence and physical fitness.
Girls on the Run trains coaches who take girls through an “experience-based” curriculum that incorporates running as well as activities that teach emotional health and life skills, Kanas said. The 10-week program culminates in a five-kilometer run.
Seven schools in the county are running the program this fall, but that number will grow to 12 in the spring, Feinstein said. The board has covered the $150 fee for 23 of the 108 girls who are currently participating.
“I’m really happy to be able to work toward this goal of growth,” Feinstein said. “There are so many girls on Long Island … that need this program, and there are so many girls probably that need scholarship.”
Kanas and Feinstein both learned about Girls on the Run from former Herricks school Superintendent John Bierwirth.
Feinstein is in her fifth year as a Girls on the Run coach, and has helped implement the program in Herricks schools.
Kanas started it in the third- and fourth-grade classes at East Williston’s North Side School two years ago, where it has become a “really positive, exciting program,” she said.
Kanas said she was initially drawn to Girls on the Run because it offered an opportunity to help encourage girls as others encouraged her in her own career.
“As a professional woman I’ve always thought it was important to encourage and to mentor and to help young girls see that they can do anything that they want to do and be equals in terms of the professional world and in terms of their goals,” she said.
Feinstein and Kanas said they want to spread Girls on the Run to even more schools in Nassau County.
The board is also thinking about how it could be expanded to other venues, such as Boys and Girls Clubs or the YWCA, Kanas said.
“Sometimes kids just aren’t that aggressive by nature at that age, and this is something they can do together with a group or by themselves that empowers them,” Feinstein said.
Other members come from the business, finance and higher education fields, Kanas said. Being chosen to help spread the Girls on the Run program in Nassau County gives her “a sense of accomplishment.”
For Feinstein, the most rewarding part of being involved with the program is seeing the girls she coaches cross the finish line at the 5K run. Completing it helps them realize just how much they can achieve with some hard work.
“They have a great feeling of accomplishment, but that finish line of the race is really just the beginning for these girls,” she said.
