Recent UNC graduate, Camille McGirt, is the co-founder of Healthy Girls Save the World, a program for young girls that encourages healthy living for the mind and body that functions right out of UNC.

“Healthy Girls Save the World is a program that promotes healthy minds, healthy bodies, and healthy relationships for girls in 6th to 9th grade,” says McGirt. “We have events at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where we allow our girls to meet college athletes, engage in physical activities, and learn about respectful and positive relationships through our many lessons and activities that we have for our girls.”

McGirt’s journey to start Healthy Girls Save the World began after tearing her ACL while playing basketball for UNC. She decided to “rebrand” herself and began an internship at the White House. She was inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama’s desire to fight childhood obesity and wanted to make a difference for girls once she returned to North Carolina. UNC provided McGirt with overwhelming resources to kickstart her idea and make it a reality that has lasted for over three years now.

The three “pillars” of Healthy Girls Save the World, healthy minds, healthy bodies, and healthy relationships, are the foundations on which McGirt’s programs are structured for both summertime and during the school year for the girls.

“Essentially, every single day, we expose them to a different pillar of Healthy Girls Save the World, and we create activities and lessons that are completely aligned with that pillar,” says McGirt. “That’s how our lessons also go when we have them during the school year: we pick which pillar that we would like to focus on, and we create lessons and activities, or field trips, that are aligned with those different pillars.”

McGirt says that she wants these experiences for the young girls to leave a lasting impression with them that they will carry with them even after their time with the program.

“We really pride ourselves in exposing our girls to a lot of different sports, college athletes, and education,” says McGirt. “We really hope that girls will retain the knowledge we are giving them and use it in their daily lives.”

For more information on Healthy Girls Save the World, click here.