Molly Barker

By Lynn Mary H.

                                      Molly Barker

                      

On January 22, 2013 Molly Barker, the founder of Girls on the Run, an organization teaching girls to be confident and feel good about themselves, came to speak to McGehee girls. She told them stories about her daughter, stories about girls that she had worked with, and she told them the story of how she came up with Girls on the Run.

 “I think that Mrs. Barker’s stories were inspiring and had life lessons that she learned in them,” says Sadie Thorne, a 5^th grader who went to see Mrs. Barker speak; Thorne feels that it’s great that Mrs. Barker dedicates her life to helping girls. Mrs. Barker also took up some volunteers to do a timeline of a girl’s life. She showed them as a baby, a 4^th grader, and as a high school student. 

As she did this, she showed what goes on in most girls heads at these ages, too. “ It was good, I liked the examples, she showed us that we were never too old to feel good about yourself “, said Claire Beary, another 5^th grader who said that she felt that Mrs. Barker’s examples were very accurate about the things that went on in her head at these ages. 

She also took some volunteers to do simple things like speaking quietly and loudly, raising hands and moving fingers, and just standing there and breathing.

 “At first when I saw people doing hand gestures and silently saying their name I thought it was a little awkward. Later on I realized what she was trying to show the audience.” Says Jasmine Mills yet, another 5^th grader. 

By doing these things, Mrs. Barker taught the girls how amazingly detailed the brain and bodies really are.

 

Molly Barker and student volunteers. Photo taken by Kristen Dry.