At any given moment, Aviva Baker will see a dozen or so fourth- and fifth-grade girls stop each other in the hallways of Jackson Elementary School to compare bracelets and necklaces adorned with charms shaped like running shoes and congratulate each other on their accomplishments. When they walk away, their heads are a little higher and their backs are a little straighter.
These girls are part of Club RAD—short for “running and determined.” A few times a week, members of the club can be seen running one to two miles through the neighborhoods of Plant City, Florida, near the school. Baker, the club’s founder, is a fourth-grade teacher at the girls’ high-poverty school, and she gives out these tiny charms when a girl logs her first three miles and then for each two miles completed after that.
“I’ve been running for 22 years, and I love the feeling of challenging myself and that sense of making myself better,” Baker, 48, told Runner’s World. “That’s what I want the girls in the club to take away from the experience. This isn’t just about running, it’s about empowerment.”
That’s one of the main reasons Baker started the club in back in January, she said. Ninety-nine percent of the student body gets free or reduced-price lunch, half of her students have a parent in prison—a few have both mother and father incarcerated—and some are in foster care. Baker said that many of the girls face challenges at home because they’re not pushed academically, and their families have low expectations of their futures. This is what generational poverty does, she added, creating a cycle where kids grow up without feeling challenged to do more.
Running has helped Baker deal with her own adversity, but she didn’t expect it would also help her students, until she brought in a finisher medal from a half marathon Nico Young Shares His Advice for Younger Runners.
“That completely changed their perception of me—I became like Super Woman because they think I’m so old, and suddenly I have this medal that represents a huge athletic accomplishment,” she said.
They were so fascinated with the medal that she brought in an older medal from another race and created a contest: Students with great behavior would get their names put into a drawing at the end of the week, and the winner would get to keep the medal. Nearly every student’s name was entered into the drawing.
“That’s the best behavior I’ve ever seen,” Baker said. “They all really wanted that medal, and that’s when I realized maybe we could get them to the point where they could earn their own.”
Since the girls faced the most difficulties in terms of feeling confident, Baker started by putting together a running group for them. Although some are much faster than the others, the amount of support they show for each other is admirable, Baker said
“They wait for one another, tie each other’s shoes, cheer on the runners around them—they are incredibly sweet, and it has become quite a bonded little group,” she said.
Although the club hasn’t existed for long, Baker is already seeing positive changes. One notable example is that a member of Club RAD had to give a presentation in her reading group, and in the past, her shyness would have been a major issue.
“Instead, she told me that if she can run two miles, she can do anything,” Baker said. “That’s the kind of attitude that translates to everything—it has a ripple effect from academia outward. They begin to expect more from themselves and from each other, and who knows where that can take them?”
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At the same time, Baker has discovered her own adult running group, which has helped her cope as she undergoes radiation therapy to destroy precancerous cells in her breasts, as well as the challenges that come with teaching at a high-poverty school. She’s also in the midst of a run streak—which she started in March 2019—that has been another way to keep her feeling focused and steady.
“Deciding to teach at a school like this, I knew I would have students with behavior issues, low scores, and little support at home—but I wanted to make a difference,” she said. “Running and building this club has helped that. This group is giving these girls their own place of safety, empowerment, and love.”
