This Mother's Day weekend, I volunteered at the Girls On the Run 5K event that had more than 1,000 girls participating. Girls on the Run is a community organization that helps girls from 3rd-8th grade with empowerment, self-esteem, and camaraderie by getting them involved in an after school running program. The Community Outreach Committee on which I serve for the Alliance of Professional Women in Denver has been supporting this organization since 2016. This year we sponsored a water stop along the race path and the Happy Hair booth. Happy hair volunteers sprayed temporary color into the hair of 400-500 kids on Saturday morning. The volunteers were dragging a bit because the event required us to be there and setup in our tent by 7:30AM. We had boxes of hair color, and bags and bags of clip in hair pieces ranging from metallic to neon. When the first few kids arrived, we had nine volunteers ready to pounce and help them get their hair decorated. Initially, volunteers outnumbered the kids coming to the booth by about three to one. And then suddenly the kids really started arriving. At one point I counted fifty kids in line waiting for their turn in the booth. It was a nonstop line for about a solid hour! We ran out of supplies at just about the time they started calling kids to lineup for the race.

One of the most heartwarming parts of working at the Happy Hair booth was kids coming up to the booth to ask how much ti cost to get their hair done. "It's free!" we would say and the girls would jump up and down with excitement. How nice to do something so simple for all these kids and just let them enjoy the day.

volunteers working in the happy hair booth

one of the volunteers spraying color into a girl's hair

giving back - spraying hair at the wacky hair booth

a volunteer laughing and having a good time

overview of the line for the happy hair both at girls on the run 5k

girl running in the girls on the run 5k race