True Grit – Vermont Nonprofit Offers
Adventure Programs for Girls

By Sarah Judd

For most young women, adolescence is no easy ride. Newly aware of themselves as being perceived and judged by others, they become quick to list their physical flaws and to under rate their talents and capacities. The middle-school years in particular are a time when most girls begin to feel pressured to put aside their authentic selves. In the process, they lose their sense of voice and self-confidence.

Dirt Divas, a mountain biking program for girls operating out of Wolcott, seeks to help young women navigate the physical and social challenges that come with growing up female. Dirt Divas is a program of Girls Move Mountains, a non-profit organization that provides adventure-based empowerment programs for Vermont girls.

Nadine Budbill, executive director of Girls Move Mountains, started Dirt Divas in 2001 with fellow educator Jessica Graham. Now in its ninth year, Dirt Divas has served approximately 200 adolescent girls, ages 11-16. This summer, the program expanded to five additional sites in Morrisville, Montpelier, Stowe, St. Johnsbury, Glover, and Hardwick.

Dirt Divas is more than just a riding skills camp. During each of the summer’s weeklong sessions, girls from a variety of social and economic backgrounds participate in activities that promote positive development and address the particular challenges girls face, such as body image, relationships, boys, peer pressure, and gossip. No girl is turned away from the program; Budbill offers a sliding scale for the program depending on family income, and supplies bikes, helmets and rain gear to those who don’t have their own.

A typical day begins with a morning check-in, team building exercises, and journal writing, where the girls set both biking and personal goals. For first-year participant Meghan Pennock, 13, goals included “getting better at uphill and jumps and to drink more water and get to know people.” Victoria Foster, 13, set goals to “challenge myself and be more supportive.”

The afternoon involves loading up “FREEDA”, the bus the girls named in honor of the freedom they experience while riding, and going to a different riding trail every day. While the girls learn technical skills based on their ability levels, and how to fix their bikes on their own, they also learn to tackle obstacles to build confidence.

Girls also participate in Diva Chat, where they create a safe space to talk openly and honestly about issues they identify anonymously. According to Budbill, Diva Chat provides an opportunity to foster positive gender identity. “When we ask, ‘What do you like about being a girl?’, lots of girls say, ‘Nothing.’ We try to reframe that for them and help them discover why they can like being girl.”

Budbill also uses exercises such as the girls paging through mountain bike magazines and viewing with a critical eye the way women are portrayed. In most of these magazines, “the very few women [included] are wearing skimpy clothes and modeling bike parts rather than biking,” says Budbill. The girls often get angry about these images, and Budbill asks them what they would like to do about it. Program participants have written letters to the biking magazines protesting the images and requesting more accurate representations of women in the sport.

Exercises like this, and the chance to talk to adults they trust about issues important to them, results in what several participants described as “woman power.” While the Dirt Divas program doesn’t explicitly use the phrase, Victoria Foster feels this power was an important part of her camp experience. “In the world today, things are led by men, and at camp we get to be focused on women.”

Budbill’s belief in the positive influence of adventure-based learning for girls stems from her own experiences as a young woman and from years of working as a youth educator and afterschool programs coordinator in Northern California, New York, and Vermont. Although she danced as a girl, she was “not into sports at all” until she got on a mountain bike in her early twenties and “loved it.” “I was amazed at how empowering it was as a young woman,” recalls Budbill. She saw the real potential of mountain biking as a tool to help girls struggling with the transition from childhood to adulthood, and as a means of enabling them to retain some of the sense of self that frequently suffers during adolescence.

“Many women spend their twenties trying to get back what we lost in adolescence, like a sense of your own voice and worth and the ability to advocate for ourselves,” says Budbill. “Why not try to keep girls from losing these things in the first place?”

Dirt Divas’ appeal is evident in the number of girls who return year after year. Junior Instructor Kayla Carter, 16, attended camp for three years, and has worked for Dirt Divas for an additional two. Initially, Carter’s mom “pushed her” into the program, but after a week of camp she wanted to come back, drawn by “the positive attitudes of the leaders, meeting new friends, and the opportunity to be myself.”

Having the chance to be one’s self is one of the strong appeals of this girls-only program. Most of the participants felt that their experience would have been completely different if it had been co-ed. Jasmine Caldwell appreciated that there were no boys because she “didn’t have to worry as much.” “I learned to be myself and [not] worry about what other people say,” the 11-year-old declares.

The Dirt Divas program aims to stave off the pitfalls of cliques forming, gossip and teasing, through a highly structured environment. This objective is carried out largely by the girls themselves, who decide on the first day of camp what they want and don’t want in the environment at Dirt Divas. “Everyone is part of the group, there’s no gossip, no whispering, and we cheer for each other a lot,” explains Meghan Pennock. By the end of the week, says Carter, “the girls are a family and no one is left out.”

According to Budbill, many of the girls who participate in Dirt Divas are “flying high,” by week’s end. “There’s an element of real emotional and mental challenge in mountain biking,” she avers. “Being on a bike and conquering your fears cultivates a sense of ‘Oh, my God, I am powerful. I can do anything.’”

Budbill is currently working to expand the Dirt Divas program to provide a continuing source of support so that its positive outcomes and experiences can last year-round. She is piloting a yearlong program at one of her sites, and a new rock-climbing program will begin in spring 2010. Her vision is to reach girls across the state and make a positive impact with all of the Girls Move Mountains programs.

“The work of this organization seems to speak to people on a really personal level,” says Budbill. “I am overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and support that there is for this work. It’s a nice affirmation that I’m doing the right thing.”

To make a donation to Dirt Divas and other Girls Move Mountains programs, or for more information on upcoming programs, contact Nadine Budbill at Nadine@girlsmovemountains.org or view the Girls Move Mountains Web site, www.girlsmovemountains.org.

Back to Top

print this page | go back