With our Fall season in full swing, it has been an incredible opportunity for me to visit our leagues and connect with the community. The enthusiasm, dedication, and professionalism I’ve seen by NICA league race staff, coaches and volunteers is extremely impressive. It is obvious that our community takes great pride in our work to get #morekidsonbikes and has great respect for one another. My hat is off to every volunteer who devotes so much time and energy to getting our athletes outside and active. I look forward to visiting more leagues and connecting with our community in the coming weeks!
As many of you may know, NICA was one of the first grantees from the newly-formed Rapha Foundation. Through their support, we will be able to strengthen our NICA Girls Riding Together (GRiT) program, to have 33% female participation by 2023. A portion of the Rapha funding is going directly to our leagues to support GRiT initiatives at the local level. To distribute these funds, we requested proposals from Leagues for what they thought would be the most effective ways to recruit and retain female coaches and female student-athletes. We received requests totaling $110,000, and worked with a review panel comprised of the NICA GRiT Program Manager, NICA Grants Manager, a student-athlete and GRiT Ambassador from Pennsylvania, and a coach and GRiT Coordinator from Texas to review and make recommendations on funding the proposals. It exciting to see the ideas the leagues will now be implementing and what our Leagues will be able to achieve with this support from the Rapha Foundation.
This, combined with the spirit and dedication I’ve been experiencing firsthand at NICA League races makes me confident and optimistic about the future of NICA GRiT and the ability of us to achieve our goal to get #moregirlsonbikes together!
Best regards,
Steve
