Broken Arrow Golf Course Collaborates With The Women’s Sports Foundation’s GoGirlGo! Chicago Program To Promote Self Esteem, Physical Activity & Life Lessons For Chicago’s Girls Through Golf
In its first year, this full week event from July 7-10 at Broken Arrow Golf Course in Lockport, Illinois introduced 75 brand new golfers to the sport. The participants included 65 girls and 10 program leaders, all whom expressed a desire to continue to participate in golf as a physical activity.
Broken Arrow Golf Course provided sponsorship through the use of the golf course and facilities, staff and coordination of the clinic activity components. The Women’s Sports Foundation provided technical assistance to bring the administrative, recruitment and funding elements of the event together which included: securing a diverse group of underserved girl participants from the Chicago-land area, volunteer cultivation and coordination, bus coordination and sponsor recruitment. This example of collaboration and public education at it’s finest produced a high impact experience for Chicago-area girls that had never experienced golf before. The event received 2520 online media hits on www.Events.org and www.WGNRadio.com, and was also posted on the internet community calendars of four other major television stations reaching millions of viewers, including WGN-TV, CBS2 and FOX Chicago.
The golf experience was completely FREE for the girls and included round trip transportation. Every girl took home a goody bag and participated in introductory clinics and skill instruction on the driving range, putting green, and short game, as well as active participation and verbal instruction on golf etiquette. Prior to the event, the girls in their GoGirlGo! programs participated in lessons from the National Health Award Winning GoGirlGo! Curriculum that takes a candid approach to topics such as body image, self esteem, bullying and anger management.
The age range was 10-18 years. The demographics included: 56% African American, 42% Hispanic, 1% Caucasian, and 1% other. Participating organizations represented eight underserved communities in Chicago’s Cook and DuPage counties.
Why a girl focus and why this age group?
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Report on The Status of Female Youth Health and Physical Activity in the Chicago Metropolitan Area 2005:
- Female youth in the Chicago areas are not getting sufficient physical activity
- Chicago girls rank worse than the national average on nine out of 14 health indicators including nutrition, teen pregnancy and sport team participation
- Only 57.3% of Chicago youth attend physical education classes one or more days a week
- Only 38.3% of female high school students in Chicago participate in sufficient vigorous physical activity each week
- 19% of Chicago youth are at risk of becoming obese, compared to the national average of 15.3%
- Nationally, one in three teens gets pregnant
Why did Broken Arrow Golf Course partner with the Women’s Sports Foundation?
The Women’s Sports Foundation’s GoGirlGo! Chicago program is part of a national initiative on the local level, launched to increase the physical activity of Chicago girls, create sustainable girls’ sports programming, and execute a model public education campaign on the importance of getting girls moving. GoGirlGo! Chicago has a proven track record of success and effectiveness in the areas of collaboration, technical assistance, public education, grant funding and has a tally of getting over 60,000 girls active since 2005.
Broken Arrow Golf Course salutes the Women’s Sports Foundation’s GoGirlGo! Chicago Program with the highest honor and thank you possible. This life-touching golf exposure experience could not have occurred without the help of the Women’s Sports Foundation and the volunteers and leaders whose assistance went above and beyond the call of duty. A heartfelt thank you is also extended to our event donors Play it Again Sports, Target, Golfsmith, and Costco for their donations of event enhancing goods and services.
The amazing teamwork created a safe space for the girls and an event that 92% of all participants said they would participate in again next year if given the chance. As a featured GoGirlGo! Chicago Week exposure event for 2008, 95% of the participant’s had never been on a golf course or held a golf club before.
Thank you and congratulations to all the volunteers, leaders, organizations, sponsors and participating girls on a very successful 2008 “Take Your Daughter to the Golf Course Week.” We look forward to expanding the collaboration base and touching the lives of even more girls in 2009!