Spring Season Is Underway!

I stopped by Olympic Continuation High School (OHS) today and received some wonderful feedback about the STRIDES program from Marcia Gecht, the amazing health teacher who has opened up her classroom to STRIDES. She shared that one of our fall 2010 participants was like a "new student" after participating in the STRIDES program. Ms. Gecht explained that the student is more confident and attends classes nearly every day now.

Her feedback means a lot to us. I was at the school collecting questionnaire data so we can track the effectiveness of our program. However, these questionnaires don't always tell us much of a story. What really matters is the stories like the one shared by Ms. Gecht, that demonstrate the need for a program like STRIDES and the impact a program like this one can have on students.

Fall 2010 participants have been invited to participate in the spring season, and several are excited to join us. We are hoping they will take on a leadership role and lead stretching and running activities while motivating other STRIDES participants to reach their goals.

STRIDES Spring Season officially begins on Monday, March 28! We are so excited to help OHS students train for a 5k while sharing and practicing strategies for building self-esteem and setting and achieving goals. We could still use your help. If you or anyone you know has women's size 6 running shoes, we actually need a couple pairs! We will know soon what other sizes we'll need. Email us at STRIDESLA@gmail.com for an address to send shoes. Thank you for your continued support!

Gearing up for spring semester!

We're excited to announce that we're gearing up to implement STRIDES again at Olympic High School during spring semester! Additionally, we're currently looking for UCLA graduate students to continue this program next year. We'll be holding an info session about the application process for these positions on Wednesday, February 9 at 5pm in the Center for Health Sciences at UCLA (exact location TBD).


Although it's likely that both of us will be leaving Los Angeles this summer, we want to be sure that STRIDES can be sustained by other UCLA students when we're gone. Once we've established the process of training STRIDES coaches, our goal is to bring this positive youth development program to other U.S. cities. Using the knowledge and passion of public health students, we can foster a movement that strives to increase community awareness that suicide is preventable.

All photos from the fall 2010 STRIDES Community 5k Run/Walk.

STRIDES Community 5k Run/Walk Results

Finisher Number	Time	First Name	Last Name
1	18:24	David	Louvet
2	18:25	Travis	Meyers
3	18:43	Robert	Ota
4	20:47	Robert	Levin
5	21:04	Chris	Opfell
6	22:24	Brian	DeLowe
7	22:33	Diana	Hossfeld
8	22:35	Stephen	Hagerman
9	22:42	Matthew	Beymer
10	22:52	Ali	Arastu
11	22:55	Luis	Flores
12	23:39	James	Lee
13	23:40	Charles	Clarke
14	23:48	Michelle	Pham
15	23:54	Amanda	Riddle
16	24:21	Julia	Pratt
17	24:30	Joseph	Carpenter
18	24:59
19	25:19	Joe	Ledford
20	25:19	Mark	Harris
21	25:32	Scot	Forbes
22	25:48	Oscar	Perez
23	25:48	Abbie	Haigh
24	25:50	Henry	Ota
25	25:57	Christopher	Mason
26	26:00	Eva	Horn
27	26:12
28	26:25	Shai	Feldman
29	26:26	Micah	Effron
30	26:27	Nicole	Vayssier
31	26:28	Heather	Stephens
32	26:28	Jillianne	Whitfield
33	26:38	Roland	Palvolgyi
34	26:50	Katrina	Stearns
35	26:50	Jessica	Howard-Anderson
36	27:07	Katia	Vaisberg
37	27:10	Samantha	Wong
38	27:13	Nicole	VanGroningen
39	27:18	Frank	Aliganga
40	27:19	Morgan	Rich
41	27:19	Tarah	Griep
42	27:30	Karen	Strach
43	27:36	Sybil	Zachariah
44	27:56	Teresa	Curtis
45	27:56	Andrew	Curtis
46	28:06	Julia	Lippe-Klein
47	28:06	Lauren	Zatorski
48	28:09	Zachary	Koenig
49	28:10	Brenda	Brown
50	28:19	Kevin	Pierce
51	28:24	Maria	Koenig
52	28:47	Catherine	Forbes
53	29:52
54	30:32
55	30:27	Mariel	Witmond
56	30:27	Jonathan	Witmond
57	30:31	Marycarmen	Guzman
58	30:50	Amber	Tucker
59	30:51	David	Cawa
60	31:07	Vanessa	Villalpando
61	31:17	Jeff	Annon
62	31:25	Amanda	Baudo
63	31:40	Belle	Gerard
64	31:40	Jamie	Peisel
65	33:53	Elyse	Homel
66	33:53	Vincent	Vitale
67	33:55	Andrea	Lu
68	34:46	Juan Pablo	Carbonell
69	35:21	Joanna	Guzman
70	36:01	Kristin	Cribbs
71	36:26	Patty	Acuna
72	37:08	Lola	Alomo
73	37:12	Grace	Lee
74	37:53	Al	Hasson
75	37:54	Stephanie	Chen
76	38:06	Elizabeth	Nelson
77	38:07	Cassarah	Chu
78	38:08	Victoria	Cho
79	38:47	Kristal	Lemus
80	38:47	Lesley	Lemus
81	39:00	Heather	Achtziger
82	39:04
83	39:49
84	40:24	Joana	Gutierrez
85	40:24	Kia	Walker
86	40:25
87	40:26
88	40:46	Sean	Prendergast
89	41:55	Shannon	Snook
90	42:00
91	42:06
92	43:21	Kevin	Hoiseth
93	43:21	Courtnee	Draper
94	44:08	Alexander	Koenig
95	45:52	Carla	Cruz
96	45:53	Jessica	Davidman
97	46:47	Jennifer	Lamanski
98	46:47	Kimberly	Komatsubara
99	46:57	Julia	Caldwell
100	46:57	Jessica	Lowe
101	47:01	Patience	Afulani
102	47:01	Whitney	Welshimer
103	47:47	Erica	Lowe
104	47:47	Hailey	Winetrobe
105	47:48	Jacqueline	Fahey
106	47:51	Xochitl	Cordova
107	48:03	Arkeli	Johnson
108	48:03	Marcia	Gecht
109	49:22	Sue	Lavaccare
110	49:30	Deborah	Glik
111	49:30	Michael	Prelip
112	49:30	Susan	Lesser