The Girl Up clubs of Grand Haven High School and Spring Lake High School are planning a 5k to raise funds for their programs taking place on October 6 at 8:30 a.m. at the Spring Lake High School cross country course.

Registration costs and more information can be found here.

Junior Jalen Greene is the co-president of Girl Up Grand Haven, along with junior Olivia Perrier, who reached out to the president at Spring Lake to coordinate this event together.

“We wanted to do a big community event, bigger than what we did last year,” Greene said. “We decided that a 5k would be a big event that would raise a lot of awareness and also a fondness for our program.”

Elaborating on their goal of raising awareness, Perrier said she hopes it inspires people to see two rival schools united fighting for one cause, and raising money for something that people care about.  

According to the Girl Up website, girlup.org, their mission is to “engage girls to stand up for girls, empowering each other and changing our world.” Both Greene and Perrier believe that their Girl Up club is working to empower girls right here in Grand Haven.

“The impact of our club is people being more aware,” Perrier said. “This kind of unity in our community is something that a lot of people care about, but don’t have the medium to go through.”

Anyone who is interested in participating in the 5k can sign up online or the day of the race. Registration will start at 7:30 a.m. and the race will begin at 8:30 a.m. Also, people who want to come to the Girl Up meetings can do so every other Wednesday at 7:20 a.m. in Mrs. Wunder’s room, 3106.