Willis H. Justice Elementary School has a new club for empowering young girls.

Girls on the Run is an international program and Justice is the first place to implement to program in Clark County.

Girls on the Run’s mission is to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.

Justice’s head coach is Kerrie Hudson, along with assistant coaches Shanna Lawson and Holly Hicks.

There are currently 11 girls on the team, they are Baylee Anderson, Morgan Bennett, Emersyn Cockrell, Riley Decapio, Bristol Doan, Presley Harper, Clara Jeffries, Addison Kathlina, Mischa Richardson, Lainie Stamper and Keilee Butler.

The team will be competing in a 5K at Keeneland with other Girls on the Run programs on Nov. 23.

The girls spent Wednesday afternoon learning about emotions. Their coaches had them each write down a positive and a not-so-positive emotion, teaching them that there are no bad emotions as long as you know how to deal with them.

After the girls wrote down their emotions on index cards, they headed outside to run, where they each are able to set their own goals for how many laps they want to run that day.

The girls were each given a card and if it was a positive emotion they ran a lap clockwise and if it was a not-so-positive emotion, they ran a lap counter-clockwise. Each time they completed a lap, they were given a new card.

I asked a few of the girls what their favorite part about being in Girls on the Run was, here are there responses:

“We get to do a lot more activity and we get to exercise.” – Presley Harper

“We get to move and run and do activities” – Baylee Anderson

“Running” – Morgan Bennett

“Hanging out with my friends” – Addison Kathlina