GirlTrek's 2022 strategy to support Black women in 1000 Black neighborhoods

You got questions, and we've got answers!  Here are Answers to the Questions that will help you get ready and unpack our strategy for our 2022 Season.  Ready?

1. What is a crew?  A crew is you plus one or two women walking and talking together at least once per week. Simple. That’s a GirlTrek crew. It is a private and safe group of friends, coworkers, neighbors or family members who hold each other accountable to being healthy and happy. If you don’t got no crew and you need to meet people in your neighborhood -- check out one of GirlTrek‘s new Trek Meet and Greets to find a neighbor to walk with and support.      
        
2. What is the 2022 goal? Joyfully and together, we will inspire, train and support Black women in 1000 Black Neighborhoods in America to start and sustain their own GirlTrek Crews before November 28th (that’s the date of The Black Family 5Ks).    
   
   
3. How do I support the big goal? Rather than being the strong pillar that you’ve always been and asking women to drive to your walks, please encourage them to start their own local crews. “Where two or three are gathered”. Many of you have been telling us this forever!  We can’t hold it down for the entire city. Don’t worry, reinforcements are coming. New volunteers. New neighborhoods. Let’s claim it. We’ve made it easy for women to start their own crews.  THAT’S our main message this year, be the Harriet in your own life. Walk out of your front door. Then invite a friend the following Saturday. That’s a crew.
   
   
4. What do I need to do differently? Absolutely nothing. You are awesome, fantastic, qualified, worthy! You are already one of the crunkest organizers in the movement. You've got rallying power, girl. Radiance. You are reliable. Please keep walking and don’t feel pressure to do anything different. You are the prototype of success.
   
   
5. What is my role? Well first of all you built GirlTrek. So there’s that. Lol. But this year we’re asking all organizers to go back to the Tubman doctrine and to start practicing radical self-care. When you feel healthy and happy and ready to go, invite a friend for a walk. In doing so, you will become a successful neighborhood crew leader and that is the goal for all of us this year. That is what success looks like. If we can each do that for even 20 Saturdays this year, we are doing something BIG.  This year, everyone is hitting reset on radical self care. Vanessa and I included. I am excited to lead a small crew of my friends walking on Saturdays in Accra. And Vanessa is going to lead a crew of her cousins virtually on Saturdays. We recommend Saturdays, but you already know, any convenient day will work. 
   
   
6. What do I do first? Well the official GirlTrek season is starting back the first weekend in April. Set your alarm and pop your collar. Friday, we start walking for Black History Bootcamp and Saturday, if you’re feeling good, invite a friend for a walk!!!    
   
   
7. Should I still log in and put walks on the map? Girl no. That was old-school. Plus you you already told told us that the old event map never worked quite right. Lol it’s cool. Let’s go back to the basics. A lot of you are successfully using a text group, a crew-sized FB group or WhatsApp groups to organize your friends or neighbors to walk.  For the time being we will encourage all walk leaders to do this. Please don’t name your group for the entire city or recruit people from other neighborhoods to walk with you because we want to give other women permission to organize as well. You can also always post a quick, “Hey I’m walking in Branchbrook Park this Saturday” on our official FB city groups if you are looking for someone to walk with.
   
   
8. How do I know I’m successful? First of all you were born successful . But also, we have a new website (it’s so pretty) and it has an amazing feature for you and those you walk with to represent on the map - a BLUE DOT for your neighborhood  - with a simple ROLL CALL CHECK IN link on our GirlTrek.org site. The form takes 30 seconds to complete and has a new “Walk and Talk Question of the Week” to keep your crew inspired.
   
   
9. Are there opportunities to deepen my service? (UPDATE: 2022 APPLICATION CLOSED)
   Yes! We are looking to hire seasonal coaches (working 5 hours per week) in the highest need target communities where members are currently not organizing or need additional support. Their job will be to support the formation of brand new crew leaders. We’re inviting women from your ranks to apply for this paid 2022 Coaching position. It requires that you lead training walks and “joy and justice” walks so that new crew leaders can see in person what GirlTrek looks like. We are looking for women to re-establish the standard. It also gives you the ability to post public walks on the website (as we scale, we will need to curate public walks very safely). If you want to apply to be a coach, HERE is the application. 
   
   
10. When will the second wave of applications to be a seasonal coach due? (UPDATE: 2022 APPLICATION CLOSED) Applications are due by April 15th. Some of you have already applied to serve. Thank you. All selections and deployments will ultimately be based on geography. We will bring on a few coaches this month and a second wave of support hired by May. 
    
    
11. How can I support coaches as a volunteer? So glad you asked! The first Saturday of each month, coaches will host “Training Treks” to model and re-introduce us all to the trek code and traditions in the field guide. I invite all of you to attend one of these walks as a refresher since we’ve all been out of the game for a minute. Training walks are already on the new website. Every month Training Walks will be on the first Saturday and we recommend you invite interested new crew leaders to attend those walks. If you don’t live near a training trek, don't worry, a new training podcast will hit the airwaves soon.  

Thanks for being the Harriet in your community and for loving the movement.

Have more questions? Email our Community Care Team at [e-mail]