Great Strides
Hopes Rise Through Running, Writing and Reading
Silvia Ruegger always had big dreams and a habit of achieving them. As a kid, she hid a note under her f loorboard that said she would one day run in the Olympics. She did, representing Canada in the first-ever women’s marathon at the 1984 Olympic Games. The next year, she ran a 2:28:36 in Houston, a Canadian marathon record that stood for 28 years. Ruegger continued to dream big, and even as cancer took its toll in the last year of her life, she registered a charity, Hopes Rise, with a vision to create running, fitness, reading and leadership programs called Champions Clubs for children and youth living in poverty.
“She had these dreams, as only Silvia could, to change the cycle of generational poverty in Canada,” says Adrian Del Monte, a runner and high-school teacher who is now executive program director for Hopes Rise.
After running in the Olympics, Ruegger began giving inspirational talks at schools, and was devastated to see how a lot of disadvantaged kids would lose hope for their future by age 12, Del Monte says. She was determined to give them a sense of optimism through the power of running, which had done so much to fuel her own dreams.
When Ruegger died in August 2019, her brother-in-law, Tim Robinson, approached Del Monte and his wife, Amy, to help launch the Champions Club program. The Del Montes agreed to help and sprang into action. They began approaching schools to take part in a Champions Club program to develop kids’ running, fitness, literacy, interpersonal and leadership skills. By December they had already started up Champions Clubs at Santa Maria, a school for Grades 1–8 in Toronto’s Weston neighbourhood. Adrian runs his school’s leadership program and was able to bring on his students as volunteer coaches for the Santa Maria kids.
Champions Clubs is a two-hour program that runs once a week. It starts with running drills, circuit training that includes tumbling moves, squat jumps and jump rope, followed by a running-based game, with music playing the whole time like a fitness class at a gym. After the exercises, the kids take a 20-minute break for a snack. “We take away the two main barriers to learning, excess energy and hunger,” says Del Monte.
The kids then split into smaller groups to work on journal writing, which includes a running log, and participants get 20 to 30 minutes of independent silent reading time. The session always ends with three or four of the coaches delivering shoutouts to participants who had done something special that day, like running farther or putting in extra effort in cleaning up.
The program began with 50 kids and was going strong until the pandemic put things on hold. The group was preparing for a 5k race in June. “The participants were really enjoying it,” says Del Monte. “We had parents telling us the kids were looking forward to Tuesday. We have kids with behavioural challenges, many don’t speak English, many live in apartment buildings and we were just seeing a lot of progress.” They hope eventually to expand the program to other schools and cities, but because of the covid- 19 situation, they don’t know when.
“Even as she was going through chemotherapy, Silvia said this dream is not dead yet,” says Del Monte. “This is our way of trying our best to carry it forward.” As the Hopes Rise team assembled their first newsletter, Del Monte says it felt surreal that they were running the program without Ruegger there. “But then it occurred to us that she is there,” says Del Monte. “We remembered that Silvia would always clap, when kids were running. She would clap and clap and clap. Silvia saw you the way that you wanted to be seen, the best version of yourself.” To find out more about the program or to donate, visit hopesrise.ca.