In its inaugural season, Run Harrisonburg, a free program that blends running, play and value-based lessons for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, had 135 participants and more than 100 student volunteers.
The group’s mission is simple: to give every kid a chance to show up, move and grow beyond the track. This goal is actualized over the course of 12 one-hour sessions on Sunday afternoons during the fall and spring seasons at Spotswood Elementary School.
Each week, runners are split into teams based on age, then complete a volunteer-led warmup. Next, the day’s core value is introduced, which can include themes like courage, inclusion and resilience.
Sessions alternate between practice days and race days. “Practice days tend to be focused around games and other activities that build physical skills such as speed and agility, with focus on teamwork and inclusion,” explained Run Harrisonburg founder and co-president, Sierra Puleo (’24). “Race days allow all the kids to show off the skills they have worked on developing … with an emphasis on additional skills such as confidence and resilience.”
Parents are welcome to stay for the sessions, and many choose to, setting up blankets and lawn chairs to watch and cheer.
But it’s about more than just getting active; it’s about breaking down barriers in sports.
“We are committed to building an inclusive environment that builds a community for all kids regardless of gender, ability or socioeconomic status,” said Sarah Hussein, volunteer engagement lead.
Hussein said she joined the organization “because I grew up in the Harrisonburg City area, and as a low-income student myself, this is an opportunity I wish I had growing up.”
Organizing and operating weekly sessions of this scale is no small feat. The Run Harrisonburg executive team is comprised of six roles: two co-presidents, a volunteer engagement lead and treasurer, as well as donor relations and community engagement positions, all of which are filled by JMU students. As the group continues to evolve, Puleo hopes to add a session planner, who would take on responsibilities currently managed by the co-presidents.
The national organization provides resources on role descriptions that Puleo and her co-president, senior Health Sciences major Madison Murphy, have tailored to their chapter’s needs.
“Once we had our first season, we saw where our specific chapter needs were. Over the summer, Madison and I mapped out all the roles that we currently have and broke them down by weeks leading up to the first session,” she said. “We do weekly check-ins to stay on track, and then once the semester starts, the hope is we’ve done so much preparation work that everything comes together smoothly.”
Though Run Harrisonburg isn’t an official JMU organization, it is fueled by Dukes. Student-athletes make up a large number of volunteers, representing the tennis, cheerleading and women’s field hockey teams, to name a few.
“We were able to get a lot more kids and a lot more volunteers than we thought was possible for our first season, which was really exciting,” Puleo said.
Because of last season’s sweeping success, the upcoming fall season of Run Harrisonburg has piqued interest beyond JMU. Volunteer opportunities are expanding to nearby Bridgewater College. In the spirit of expansion, the team hopes to further awareness and partner with local businesses on fundraising efforts. The entirety of their funding for things like food and equipment comes from external donations.
At the completion of the first season, Puleo was delighted by the response the team received. “We got a lot of positive feedback. It seems like we were filling a need; we were providing something that a lot of parents and students in the Harrisonburg area really enjoyed. It was great to see the kids coming back every week, excited and wanting to be there.”
Despite its successful kickoff, Run Harrisonburg almost never made it off the ground. Founded in 2018 by the University of Virginia cross-country team, the nonprofit Run Your City, which is the national umbrella organization, was looking to expand outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Naturally, its neighbor, Harrisonburg — only an hour away — was an obvious choice. The groundwork was laid for the Run Harrisonburg chapter to start, and everything was ready to go. But mere days before its start, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down that plan.
The idea lay dormant for a few years until the fall of 2024, when the Charlottesville chapter took another shot at expansion. It reached out to Puleo, who, throughout her undergraduate career, was an avid runner, dedicating all four years to the women’s cross-country and track and field teams.
She was immediately hooked. “They reached out to me, and I was like, ‘I love this. This is right up my alley.’”
This past winter, Puleo enrolled in the Master of Science in Accounting program at JMU, and although she was taking a step back from the team, she saw Run Harrisonburg as the perfect chance to stay connected to running while giving back.
“I feel like as a student-athlete, the Harrisonburg community really does give a lot to us,” she shared. “They come to and support us at games, they donate, they show up. So even though I wasn’t a student-athlete anymore, I was still in Harrisonburg, and I felt like this was an opportunity to be able to give back to the community through something I love — running.”
The importance of organizations like Run Harrisonburg cannot be understated. Each week, kids come out and get moving for free, in a safe space, where, at the end of the day, the aim is having fun.
“Our goal is not for the kids to do a good job or even to finish the race,” Hussein said. “It’s about team-building, confidence-building. This is an opportunity for kids to have fun, where their parents can support from the sideline, where they can instill healthy habits and values outside of exercise.”
In the seven years since Run Your City’s founding, more than 50 new chapters have been established, two of which are internationally based. Harrisonburg’s chapter embraces the same growth mindset. “With our first season,” Puleo said, “we didn’t really know what to expect. But from everything we have learned and everything we have set up, moving forward is with the mindset to make [Run Harrisonburg] last for many years to come.”
Run Harrisonburg’s first fall session was Aug. 31, but sign-ups are still open for interested families and volunteers. Find more information on Run Harrisonburg and Run Your City here.
