About Us
Our MissionTeens Run DC empowers at-risk youth to envision and work towards the achievement of personal goals through an adult mentoring and distance running program.
Based on a similar, successful initiative in Los Angeles, students train alongside their running leaders and mentors, who challenge and guide these youth to develop the skills necessary to achieve their running goals and their life goals. Students learn greater responsibility, discipline, perseverance, and goal-setting skills as they train for progressively longer distance races. They become healthier and feel better about themselves. They work towards success in their running and towards success in school. Between running leaders and individual mentors who serve as strong, positive role models and peers working towards similar goals, Teens Run DC strives to create a caring community and a sense of belonging that is not the experience of most of the teens that we serve. With Teens Run DC, students run steady and strong to succeed in life.
The Center for Self Discovery
Teens Run DC is part of the Center for Self Discovery and operates under the umbrella of the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, a 501C3 non-profit charity organization. As such, all donations are fully tax deductible. CSD-DC’s primary mission is to support at-risk youth through the development of adult mentoring programs. Through these programs, we support positive change and growth within the context of caring relationships and emphasize our clients’ strengths and problem-solving abilities to improve their lives. In addition, CSD-DC is setting up a pro bono counseling inkage service so that all residents living in the District of Columbia in need of mental health care, but unable to afford such services, can be linked with licensed and insured mental health professionals at no cost.
Demographics
In our first year, we had 19 students, ages 14 to 18, from Wilson High School in Northwest DC. This group reflects a diverse student population, coming from all parts of DC: 13 were female and 6 were male; 7 were White; 5 were Black; 3 were Hispanic; 3 were Asian; and 1 was Middle Eastern. To support these 19 students, we had 7 dedicated teacher-mentors.
Next Steps
This fall, we are expanding our program from 19 students to 50, from one school to four. In addition to Wilson High School, we will establish new programs at Cardozo HS, Stuart Hobson Middle School (8th graders), and Thurgood Marshall Academy. We will develop teams, consisting of at least 10 students and 2 running leaders per school. Additionally, our goal is to have individual mentors for every one to two students participating in the program. These mentors, unlike the running leaders who typically work within the schools, will come from the corporate and government sectors, local running clubs and university settings. These individual mentors will commit two to four hours per week to running and spending time with their mentees, typically on weekend team runs.
In order to be more inclusive of all potential students who might join our program, including those who are more physically fit and those who are less active, we have developed a two track training system – with one track leading to completion of the National Half-Marathon as our culminating event and a second track leading to the completion of one or several 10K races. Only those students who have participated in Teens Run DC more than one year and who shown the necessary steadiness in their practice will be permitted to run the full marathon.
Ultimately, our hope and goal is to expand our distance running and mentoring program to include all secondary school students and teens throughout the greater Washington area who have the interest and motivation to take charge of their lives one step at a time.
Giving Back
Following the completion of the SunTrust National Marathon, students from Teens Run DC will spend four Saturdays with selected youth from Kids Run DC for a series of half-day weekend fun runs or run-related activities. These weekends will offer TRDC youth (with the guidance of their mentors) an opportunity to give back and mentor their younger counterparts. In so doing, we hope to further instill within TRDC youth their identification of themselves as runners as they share their excitement, teaching what they have learned and hopefully what they have learned to love. For the youth in KRDC, they will have the opportunity to develop more positive associations to running as they see the excitement and experience the full engagement of and attention from this group of teens who can serve as positive role models. In so doing, KRDC youth will see an alternative and more positive vision of what lays ahead for themselves and the possibility of their continuing in our “graduate” Run DC program, Teens Run DC. These four weekends will culminate in a 5K race to be held in early May.
TRDC as a research lab for understanding youth mentoring
This past summer, we began a collaboration with George Washington University’s Schools of Public Health, Education, and Psychology so that we might not only develop a stronger program, but also develop a model for best practices in youth mentoring. As such, Teens Run DC and the Center for Self Discovery will be engaged in various research activities as we evaluate those aspects of our program that lead to success among our students”.