A need among teenagers for running and sports undergarments led to this nonprofit organization.
Runners World | July 2022
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A teenage girl ran a quarter-mile around the track before her sternum started heaving in and out, and her pulse quickened, a sensation she’d never experienced before. With a pounding heart, she called her teachers for help in fear she was having a heart attack.
“At least one girl pulls us aside every year during the one-mile running module, because her heart is beating so fast and she doesn’t know what that is. Our students don’t all know what a high heart rate is and haven’t felt that before,” says Carrie Wagner, executive director of the Denver-based Girls Athletic Leadership Schools (GALS), a college preparatory middle and high school that makes physical movement a center part of the curriculum. (There is also a GALS high school location in Los Angeles County, California.)
“After calling an ambulance for the first incident six years ago, when a student thought she was having a cardiac event, we know now to teach girls about how it’s healthy to feel your heart pumping more blood when you move your body,” Wagner tells Runner’s World.
Countless young, maturing girls in communities nationwide do not have exposure to sports in their daily lives—that includes education on safety and performance gear.
One of the biggest deficits for growing girls nationwide, ages 8 to 18, is having access to a sports bra, a trend that Wagner sees at GALS. Meaning, many maturing females do not have access to suitable athletic gear that secures and protects their chest as they begin to participate in sports at school and go through breast development.
Bras for Girls, which recently became an official nonprofit that accepts donationsand new partnerships, is working to change that fact. The organization solidified their nonprofit status earlier this year, after operating as an internal giveback program for Oiselle, a women’s run apparel company, since 2017.
“Sports bras help give girls and young women the confidence to run, because they help with the normalization of body changes—part of being a healthy athlete is letting your body develop normally. Secondly, wearing the appropriate gear helps you feel comfortable while you exercise,” says Bras for Girls executive director Sarah Lesko, a former collegiate runner and cross-country captain at Yale University. Lesko also worked as middle school cross-country and track coach for nearly a decade.
To date, more than 19,000 brand new sports bras have been donated to middle and high school girls across the country through Bras for Girls (as well as a few international programs), including nearly 1,000 sports bras that have been distributed at GALS in Denver over the past three years.
The Catalyst of Bras for Girls
Initially the Bras for Girls concept provided an avenue for Oiselle to funnel overstock inventory to individuals in need. Then in 2018, the brand also launched the Get Sporty Bra, a design utilizing in-house textile waste to create bras for the donation pool.
Despite the effort, Bras for Girls was “grossly underprepared for the unmet need and enthusiasm for the program,” says Lesko, who helped spearhead the 2017 launch.
By December 2020, more than 50,000 requests for sports bras had been submitted from schools and organizations nationwide. To help, Oiselle also debuted the In2Sports Bra in a buy-one, give-one initiative to support the orders, the following year.
But as the demand continued to grow—the organization has received more than 20,000 requests for bras so far this year—Bras for Girls needed to reformat, becoming an independent organization in order to partner with apparel brands and scale up.
How the Bras for Girls Program Works
One Bras for Girls facilitator, Lauren Kobylarz, program director for Students Run Philly Style, a running mentorship program that partners with nearly 60 schools throughout Philadelphia, of which 80% are youth of color, helps distribute bras to the girls in her organization.
Students Run Philly Style connected with the Bras for Girls program in December 2020, and has since distributed more than 900 sports bras to their female participants, many of whom did not previously know that sports bras are meant to fit very snug.
Fortunately, the Bras for Girls program teaches girls how to measure themselves for their bra size. And students have an opportunity to try on various sizes before placing an order for their own sports bra. (The In2Sports Bra also offers expansive sizing from XS to 3X.)
“I said to the girls, ‘The sports bra is supposed to be tight and compressive, so it can be supportive. That was a lightbulb moment for our students,” says Kobylarz. She added, “For some of our girls, it’s their first sports bra, which is changing how they’re looking at their own abilities and their confidence to get out there and do something new like running a long-distance race.”
“When you’re in a bigger body and an athlete, it’s challenging to find sports bras that work. We had one young lady that said, ‘They won’t have a sports bra that fits me, because my boobs are too big.’ When the bra with a larger cup and band size fit, she giggled and beamed all day. It was heartwarming to see her included like all of her teammates,” says cross-country coach Brandi Swortz, who works with Bras for Girls at Hudtloff Middle School in Washington.
On the ground, the Bras for Girls workshop also distributes an educational pamphlet on breast growth, including information on how breasts can vary in shape and size, the basics of a bra, how a bra should fit, and how to test a bra fit, says Lesko, who is also a board-certified family physician.
“If girls don’t have the proper chest support, they can’t move around as much, because their boobs—regardless of size—hurt when they run. Or, the girls cross their arms over their chest, and they get self-conscious,” Wagner says. “The majority of our students don’t have a bra particularly for sports, might not know that a special bra is needed for working out, and that a regular bra doesn’t have enough support for most people.”
Eva Carney, the executive director and founder of The Kwek Society, which works to end period poverty for Native American students and others in need countrywide, adds that students lacking sports bras walk slumped over or wear extra baggy clothing, because they feel exposed without a sports bra.
Since 2018, the The Kwek Society has collaborated with Bras for Girls to gift nearly 1,500 sports bras to their partner schools and organizations, which primarily serve indigenous populations nationwide from Red Cloud Indian School in South Dakota to Navajo Prepatory School in New Mexico and the Indian Township School in Maine.
“A good, quality-fitting sports bra is a dream and luxury, even if you are not an active runner or weightlifter, because it fits, gives you confidence, and makes you feel like you are able to be an active participant in your daily life,” says Carney.
Providing well-constructed undergarments also helps teach girls confidence in their everyday life. Carney says, “We have a lot of students on the Navajo Nation, and a fair number are shy. Having a sports bra that protects and covers the breasts fits with the idea of not being reluctant to be out in the world with a developing body.”
Lack of Breast Support Is a Global Issue
Backing the Bras for Girls initiative, a 2016 Portsmouth University survey-based study found that 46% of girls are impacted by breasts in their sports and exercise participation.
The United Kingdom-based researchers, several of which operate the ongoing University of Portsmouth Research Group in Breast Health, also found that more than half of girls did not wear a sports bra during exercise, and 38% of girls were extremely concerned about breast bounce, which surfaced as a primary issue.
While thousands of U.S.-based anecdotes about the essential need of sports bras and breast education have been made visible through Bras for Girls, the nonprofit partnered with Cornell University through the Adolescent Transitions Lab to complete a study on the effects of breast development education and donated equipment. A pilot questionnaire was recently completed, and the first comprehensive survey with 2,000 participants will be completed in fall 2022.
“We want to understand how the education and equipment effects the girls’ attitudes and beliefs towards sports,” says Lesko.
If you want to get involved with Bras for Girls, you can donate money or new sports bras (if you work with a brand or retail), or connect with participating organizations.
