Trauma, abuse, and neglect are all experiences in life that can be hard for many to recover from, but one local woman is trying to make an impact, especially with young girls.
“You can do it,” Liz Ferrow, CEO and founder of Girls with Sole, encouraged the group of teenage girls as they were about to stretch for their run.
"I was a little shy and I guess you could say I didn’t have much confidence in myself,” said Jada McCall, a now graduate of the 6-week program. She explained how she felt that way until she met Ferrow and her group, Girls with Sole.
“When I first started Girls with Sole, I saw that there was a lot of people who liked being active and exercising,” McCall said.
Now she’s living a life with more freedom.
“My self-esteem has been built up. My confidence has been built up,” she said.
And that’s just one way Ferrow starts the healing process.
“And that’s really a big portion of it, is to put negative emotions in a positive healthy place,” Ferrow said.
She uses fitness, exercise and running as bait to get them to eventually open up and work through their past pains and traumas, building self-love.
“Self-esteem, I could say that’s my number one, I never had self-esteem,” said Jada Skye-Curry, another graduate of the program.
“These are things that happen to people no matter where you live, how old you are, what you do. Things happen to people, so why, not pretend like it’s not going on, but do something about it,” said Ferrow
And when they’re not processing their past, Ferrow is exposing them to experiences they’re not used to having, like paddleboarding, hiking and zip lining.
“So they’re power trips because it’s really important to me and the girls of sole to expose the kids to something that wouldn’t normally do,” said Ferrow.
Healing the soul, with the sole.
“I would say it’s like a sisterhood,” said Skye-Curry.
The work that Ferrow has been doing with the girls has been catching on with adult women recently.
So she’s developed a workbook for that age group to help them as well and it will be released this fall.
