GirlTrek empowers local women to be solution-makers in their communities. This grant will support an initial planning phase as GirlTrek prepares to launch a workforce development and financial sustainability strategy that trains GirlTrek volunteers to become certified community health workers, peer recovery support specialists, and doulas, and receive reimbursement.

Through this New Jersey pilot, GirlTrekkers will build upon their model of “walking support groups” and become certified and paid to provide peer support and physical activity to women to disrupt disease and support life-saving habits. This strategy has a triple intent: 1) to improve the health of individual families and address the adverse impacts of poverty; 2) to increase GirlTrek’s institutional capacity to deliver direct public health services in high-need communities; and 3) to create a sustainable funding path that enables GirlTrek to reach its vision of increasing life expectancy for Black women by ten years, in ten years. This first phase of work will culminate with a feasibility plan defining clear pathways for GirlTrek volunteers to achieve certification and receive reimbursement.