Jackie B. first heard about Back on My Feet from a friend in her hometown of Wilmington, Delaware who was a member at New Jerusalem Now (NJN). “When I first started I couldn’t run the whole distance. I’m a sprinter by nature so I had to start by walking. It made me feel like I accomplished something. I’m not only running for myself, I’m also running for someone else – for a lot of people.” Jackie was nervous for her first 5k race last October. After completing it, she realized “I can do this.” Since then Jackie has been consistently improving her race times and ran at the AT&T Back on My Feet Halfway-to-Broad 5-miler, despite occasional knee pain. Jackie says about the morning runs, “now I don’t even need an alarm clock. I wake up ready to run at 4:30 every morning.”

Since joining Back on My Feet, Jackie states that meeting diverse people like students from Temple and members from other BoMF teams has made her realize that each person’s story is different and relevant and in Jackie’s own words, “that I am somebody.”  Jackie’s big eyes and mischievous smile easily break into a laugh and can’t help but spread a positive mood to those around her.

Jackie had to face the untimely death of her young son, which ultimately inspired her to join the immersive, community addiction recovery program at NJN to change the direction of her life.  “I run the bad stuff off. I always say ‘Good Morning’ to my son, who is with me every day. If it wasn’t for him I’d still be sitting on the corner doing what I was doing (drugs). Now I’m doing something for me, something that is positive.”

Jackie is currently a house manager at NJN where she oversees a house of six women in the addiction recovery program.  She is an excellent motivator to the women at the house as well as to her BoMF teammates and keeps people giggling early in the morning.  Through her dedication and hard work, she manages to maintain an endearing sunny attitude, consistency and approachability.  She takes a behind-the-scenes leadership approach through many small acts that make a big difference. Whether it’s acting as a voicemail/secretary for her house residents or cooking for someone who doesn’t like to cook just to be nice, Jackie always steps up. If you’re lucky, you can spot her cooking up her favorite meal, Chicken Parmesan.

Jackie has been attending banking courses with BoMF and recently enrolled in a beginner’s computer course that she is excited about. Her openness to change and learning is contagious, even in regards to things that intimidate her and she says she knows nothing about.

 “I never completed anything I started in my life. Back on My Feet has shown me that I can do that. It helps me to keep my mind together and now I believe my kids when they tell me that I can accomplish anything I put my mind to.” Jackie’s kids are proud of her for being part of Back on My Feet, living at New Jerusalem Now and running races.

St. John’s:

With the majority of our members planning to participate in half or full marathons in the coming months, August marked the beginning of Fall race training for the St. John’s Team.

With the team logging miles at record speed this month, team coach Heather decided it was time to mix in some cross-training. Philadelphia Sports Club was generous enough to donate a SPIN room for our use one Friday morning, and former team leader of RWA, Megan Oxenford instructed the team in an intense 45 minutes of spinning, and singing to the original St. John’s requested playlist.

At the Wissahickon Wanderer’s Track Meet, St. John’s proved that training is paying off.  Bob set a new PR during his 5k race around the track, Mike P. showed us that walking is a thing of the past and he is ready to run, and the St. John’s relay team (Dan, Ron, Henry and Leonard) closed out the night with a great performance!

Sheila Dennis:

We celebrated our team’s 1^st birthday with cake and dancing. Esterlina, Lisa, and Eleanor all began classes in Philadelphia’s OIC program.  Esterlina earned her 50 mile medal and 60 mile watch. Lisa and Rhoda earned their 30 mile shirts.  Dawn, Wilma, Eleanor, and Jesse ran the 400m at the Wissahickon Wanderers Track meet. Dawn and Jesse also joined a relay medley.

Our Brother’s Place:

First, team OBP would like to give a HUGE thanks to Pete DeCarolis for serving as our team leader for the last 6 months. Pete brought a tremendous amount of dedication, patience and a genuine sense of caring to our team. He’s a terrific guy and a wonderful friend to us all. He always brings his clever sense of humor and always makes each of us happy to be living in the moment. Thanks Pete!

Our new team leader is Marisa Jones. She’s been with the team for quite a while. She’s a natural leader, someone we all predicted would eventually take the helm. We are all glad that she did! We’re looking at an active 6 months ahead of us.  Thanks you Marisa for your commitment to our team.

OBP is super excited to welcome our new res-members. Just as our team was beginning to feel like a small group, we’ve added Mequan,  Jeree, and Adam. For milestones, Lamar has already crossed the 50 mile mark while Dave F. reached 100 miles! WOW! Congrats to Dave!

We witnessed stellar performances by Olani, Lamar, Christine, Pete D., Pete S., Matt, and Sebastian at the Wissahickon Wanderers Track Meet, capped off with a 3rd place finish by Team OBP (Lamar, Christine, Matt and Pete S.) in the Distance Medley Relay! The full team will be meeting up this weekend for some roller skating, which should make for a few good laughs and memories.

New Jerusalem Now

August was another great month at NJN. After the crazy July, many of our team members enjoyed the more relaxing month of August. We participated in the track meet. We loved being able to include more of our team with the shorter events. Our ladies participated in the 400-meter relay. Dave set a personal best in the mile! Mohamed also ran in the 2 miles. Awesome work guys! We continued to keep pushing our running in our training runs. Almost everyone on the team is doing at least half of the mileage at run and the other half at a jog. We have many team members who are working towards their first 5k race.

We added several new volunteers throughout the month of August. Our fearless leader was off on vacation for much of August, so we give a big thanks out to our awesome volunteers for helping to keep our team running smoothly! We also added new team members Dan and Nikki. The new res members just reached their first 10 miles! Mereald reached 250 miles and Palmar hit 50 miles. Mohamed is also starting classes at CCP.

A sad event that affected our team was the loss of Roswell, an awesome and well respected non-res. We will miss him greatly and proudly participated in a memorial run and organized cards for his family. We will always remember this amazing person and he will always be a part of our team. Some of our residents have also dedicated future races to his memory.

As we start to move into the cooler fall weather, we are looking forward to our social events and a lot of awesome fall races which we are working on building towards and having more entries in! Come out and join us for a morning run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5:40AM!

Ready, Willing, and Able:

August was a hot month for team Ready, Willing and Able, but that didn’t keep us from getting our miles in! Therion and Wardell have managed to keep their attendance at a whopping 100% while James is close behind at 99%. Both Therion and Wardell have also attended Saturday runs to help train for the ING half marathon and potentially the Philly full marathon! Maurice, our team captain, recently reached 250 miles while balancing his busy work schedule. We congratulate all of you! We recently welcomed in two new res members: Vern and Todd, who both bring an optimistic attitude and unwavering smiles to our morning circle. Lastly, Sarah stepped down from her position as team leader. Her positive spirits motivated the team and made every member feel welcome. One res member has even described her as the “Energizer Bunny” due to her upbeat attitude. We all thank you for everything that you have done!

As the heat picked up in July, so did NJN!!! It was quite a month for us! We welcomed several new volunteers! Each week our circle grows more and more! This month was the 4th Annual Stroehmann Back on My Feet 20in24 racing event. Megan and Dave competed in the Lone Ranger where they attempted to run for 24 hours and see how many miles they could get! Megan got just over 50 and Dave over 60! Awesome work guys! Kenny, one of our alums, ran in a relay team with other BoMF Residential- Members. We had almost everyone else on the team come down to cheer teammates on and help out at the aid stations. Overall it was an amazing event and we had a blast!

Congrats to Greg who just got a job at Citizen’s Bank Park! Greg and Norvell hit 50 miles and Palmar hit 25 miles! We enjoyed our July social event with the rest of the Philadelphia BoMF family at the Philadelphia Soul. Even though the team lost, it was great hanging out with the other teams! Many of us have never been to an arena football game before so it was a nice outing.

August is going to be another awesome month! We are attending a track meeting and excited for the shorter distance events so that many more of our members can run. We are also doing a beach trip!

Come out and join us Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays at 5:40am!

Members of the Month:  Res and Non Res

Rachel (Non Res): “I enjoy running with BoMF because I think that exercise is such an important component of emotional and physical well being.  Being around the positive energy of the group is a great way to start the day!”

Palmar (Res): “I wanted to join BoMF so that I could get healthier. I struggle with hypertension and my goal is to get my health to a point where I no longer need medications.”

Smiling and running at the Moorsetown run

Mohamed told me about a time when he was watching TV and Back on My Feet came on the news. This prompted a conversation about negative people and positive people. One thing that Mohamed enjoys about Back on My Feet is the opportunity he has to be around different people. He said that he used to spend most of his time dealing with the same negative people over and over. Now, he is able to look back on a day and reflect on the diverse group of people he encounters and how their positivity prompts positivity in him.

“Keep challenging yourself”, says Mohamed. He brings a standard to Back on My Feet that challenges everyone around him. An accountability that moves upwards and downwards throughout the team. Mohamed continues to challenge himself everyday. He regularly attends races and has recently enrolled in Community College of Philadelphia’s Behavior Health program. He also recently completed a computer literacy certification course with FreedomRingsPartnership.

It has been a wonderful site seeing everyone out running in the morning! NJN has been making great strides since the past month. Some are getting ready for 20in24 and we all are taking advantage of this wonderful morning running weather! We welcomed new res members Jill and Palmer, they both have been doing awesome! Greg and Norvell hit 50 miles. Norvell has made huge strides with his health!

Thanks to Kristen for helping out team leading this month while Megan was teaching summer school! Our race this month was the Moorestown 8k. Dave and Mohammad ran 5 miles while Greg, Carolyn, Nikki and Mereald ran the 1-mile race. They all did awesome! Even though NJN missed the BoMF picnic this month, they had an awesome time at the Papas festival.

We are counting down to 20in24 along with the July social at the Philadelphia Soul game! Keep up the awesome work guys! Come join us for our morning runs at 5:40AM Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays!

Members of the Month:

Res- Greg “BoMF has given me the chance to meet great people, get involved with many things I have never done before, and get my health back!”

Non-Res- Roswell “I enjoy running with BoMF because I deeply believe every time you meet a new person your life is changed ever so slightly due to the fact that they were in your presence. Being a part of the BoMF family truly has changed me as a person for the better and I can only hope I have done the same for someone else.“

New Jerusalem has been quite busy and cannot believe the summer is almost over!

Recently we had our Beach Trip to Wildwood. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately our trip was cut a little short when it started down pouring on us — laughter and smiles by all of course — but all in all a good trip!

Some of our members recently competed in the Wissahickon Track Meet at Roxborough High School. Congrats to David Bayo who had personal best times in the Mile and 5k.  DeJuan, George, and Mohammed also competed and in the 400 and 800 meter races that enjoyed the dynamic of the races!

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New Jerusalem had a great showing at the Stroehmann Back on My Feet 20in24 in July.

Members Dave and Kenny ran as part of a relay team that came in 3rd place!  Great job to both of them for some excellent running on a very hot day!  Also a big thanks to many of the other NJ teammates who volunteered at water stations and helped clean up after the event, their help was very much appreciated!  A recap of 20in24 wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our team leader Suzanne McHenry who was part of a platinum relay.  She ran a total of 34 miles over the 24 hour period.  Thanks to everyone for their support!

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Our Philadelphia chapter recently collected some quotes from members for a document, so we thought we’d share some here:

“Back on my feet has helped me prepare for basic training. I feel stronger and ready for training now that I have participated with Back On My Feet. I am going to miss everyone so much when I leave at the end of June.”

- Jorell, Team OBP

“These people encourage you. They don’t view you differently because of your past,” “I look and I see unity of the group. I see friendship. These people are my friends.”

- Antonio, Team RWA told the Daily News

“Back On My Feet has taught me to maintain discipline and the motivation to get myself in shape again.  It is going to take a while, but with Back On My Feet’s help I believe I can do it!”

- Rich A, Team St Johns

“I like to come out because I like to see everyone including myself getting in shape and circling up as a group.  I like to see everyone out there doing something positive together rather than something negative. It makes my morning!”

- Shabazz, New Jerusalem

Last Saturday, June 5th, 2010, 28 Philadelphia chapter members participated in the 26th Annual Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8k.

Despite the hot and humid weather, Back on My Feet had a strong showing at the race on Saturday. Six of the eight Philadelphia teams were represented and the participants stuck it out despite the hot and humid weather.

Non-residential member, Phil Gause, was the first of Back on My Feet to finish with a time of 28:40. The first residential member to finish was St. John’s team member, Eric F., with 34 min. He was followed by New Jerusalem member, David B., who finished in 36 min.

Staff member Austin Gee and intern Kyle Bruccoliere also were among the Back on My Feet participants.

Back on My Feet extends congratulations to all who ran!

See photos here.

The more than 400 people who attended the Boston launch breakfast. Photo by John Deputy.

More than 400 people attended the Inaugural John Hancock Back on My Feet Boston Breakfast Presented by the Marriott on Monday, May 24, 2010 at 8 a.m.

The event followed the chapter’s inaugural run at the Boston Common to officially kick off the fourth chapter of the nonprofit that promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations.

The hour event featured speakers from John Hancock Financial and Marriott International, the event’s title sponsors, in addition to Back on My Feet Founder Anne Mahlum and Kevin Brown, an alumnus of the program’s Philadelphia chapter and its New Jerusalem team.

Watch video of those presentations below.

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