Mini Mermaid Running Club

After school running club with a mission to teach every girl to lead a healthy life by listening to her inner voice, valuing her uniqueness and loving movement. Mini Mermaid Running Club www.minimermaidrunningclub.org MMRC, Mini Mermaid Running Club, and Young Tritons Running Club, est 2009, 501 ©(3) is a California not for profit organization. We stand for dignity for ourselves and others and believe providing a platform for children to find their unique voice and form of movement will foster a lifelong habit of self-care.Mini Mermaid Running Club's mission is to teach every girl to lead a healthy life by listening to her inner voice, valuing her uniqueness, learning to love movement and discovering the finish line is just the beginning. Young Tritons Running Club mission is to inspire every boy to become emotionally and physically balanced through self-compassion, empathy, cooperation, a broadened definition of strength and discovering the finish line is just the beginning.We believe in utilizing running, jogging and walking as a teaching method for self-efficacy. “Self-efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one's motivation, behavior, and social environment." (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997)(1) When you combine movement at one's pace, small groups for reflection, games, and goal setting for crossing a 5k finish line, you see how children blossom in their value of themselves, their ability to stand up for themselves and others and increase in their desire to seek opportunities to realize their goals and dreams. MMRC was born having discovered a lack of after school running clubs for girls at or below the poverty line with a small local grant, a movement-focused curriculum that targets girls on the economic margin enrolled in schools with greater than 41% at or below the poverty line typically without access to extracurricular programming. 60 girls participated in the 6-week program pilot program in Santa Cruz. In 2011 at the same school, another 70 girls participated. Just six years later, MMRC has empowered over 5000 girls and now boys in 13 states and seven countries through an easy, flexible, transformative curriculum. In 2015, after many requests from community members, MMRC established Young Tritons Running Club for boys.