“Go ahead, squirt me! Make me orange!” shouted the nine-year-old girl as she ran past a team of volunteers squirting orange powder at runners along Thetford Academy’s Dan Grossman Woods Trail 5K course. She, her mother, and 283 other runners and walkers of all ages participated in Finding Our Stride’s first annual Community Color Splash and Dash fun run on May 31 this past spring. Finding Our Stride’s motto is Positivity in motion, and it was on full display as families and runners from throughout the Upper Valley helped celebrate the organization’s 15th year of bringing its 100% free and inclusive afterschool youth wellness programs to elementary and middle schools up and down the Connecticut River Valley.

Pure joy as a young runner approaches a color splash station.

The Color Splash and Dash was the first major community event for Finding Our Stride. It served as a fundraiser and, more importantly, as a way to expand the organization’s efforts with rural youth to include families and adults. The goal was to promote outdoor activity through a fun, welcoming, inclusive, and non-competitive event that built community. To ensure everyone felt welcome, organizers offered three course options: the well-known 5-km cross-country course familiar to high school runners across New England, a shorter 3-km route that bypassed the challenging “Morty’s Monster” hill, and a special 300-meter “Lollipop” run for children ages five and under, where every child received a colorful lollipop at the finish line. The event emphasized participation and fun by being untimed and by having volunteers throughout the course who sprayed runners with colored powder made from cornstarch and food coloring.

A runner passing through the last of the five color stations at Finding Our Stride’s Community Color Splash and Dash along the 5K
Woods Trail at Thetford Academy.

Finding Our Stride was founded 15 years ago by Jenny Williams, who saw an unmet need in our rural communities: inclusive, barrier-free programming where all youth have opportunities to thrive socially, emotionally, and physically. She partnered with the Indian River School of the Mascoma Valley School District, and the program supported 14 youth in its first year. Today, the program partners with over 25 schools, bringing its unique afterschool model, free of charge, to sites throughout the greater Upper Valley, from Ludlow, Vermont, to Lisbon, New Hampshire. Finding Our Stride’s theory of work is simple: get kids outside, active, and away from screens; give them a challenge; surround them with supportive peers and adults, and good things will happen. Add a purposeful dose of community engagement, and great things will happen. In the 2025/2026 school year, 1,200 youth participated in the program, and the organization provided stipends to 125 coaches each year, 90% of whom are teachers in the partnering schools, providing opportunities for school staff to build deeper relationships with students outside the classroom. In addition to being free, Finding Our Stride provides healthy snacks and supports a Sneaker Fund that provides free running shoes, ensuring every child has proper footwear. Over the past fifteen years, the organization has grown and evolved through collaborative partnerships with school leaders and teacher-coaches. Together, the organization has designed a program that builds fitness, strengthens social-emotional health, and cultivates connection to community.

Ella Rodakowski of Norwich (right) proudly crosses the finish line with her cousin Amelia DeFrancis.

As a holistic, youth-wellness program, Finding Our Stride sees bringing families and community together through opportunities to participate in healthy activities as part of its mandate. The Color Splash and Dash did just that, and the organization looks forward to providing more events in the future. And it seems they’re filling a need. As one participant yelled as they left with their family after the Color Splash on the way to their car, “It was a blast — we can’t wait to do it again next year!”