BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Walking around for something bigger than yourself. There's a local group of Black women helping others to raise awareness about their health, and they do it through trekking the streets of Bakersfield.
- Girl Trek Bakersfield, led by Marie Anthony, raises health awareness among Black women through community walks.
- Marie Anthony started Girl Trek Bakersfield in 2020 in response to health disparities during the pandemic.
- The initiative encourages women to walk for 30 minutes daily as an act of radical self-care.
- Girl Trek Bakersfield now also provides winter necessities to the homeless during their walks.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
There's a local group of Black women helping others to raise awareness about their health, and they do it through walking.
Marie Anthony, a nurse for Kern Medical saw a need in the community to raise awareness of health disparities among African Americans during the pandemic.
So, she started the Bakersfield Girl Trek Branch and has been the city ambassador of the cause ever since.
Anthony tells me,"We have a lot of morbidity, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease, and we suffer from because of high blood pressure we have strokes and heart attacks."
African Americans in Kern County make up about 5% of the population between the ages of 20-70 years old. According to state health officials, there were 90 COVID-related deaths among Blacks in this age group from 2020 to 2024, lower than Whites and Hispanics. However, Blacks had the highest mortality rate among the three groups, at 304.3 percent.
The two leading causes of death among Blacks in Kern County were coronary heart disease and cancer. In response to this, the Girl Trek club takes to the streets for walks.
Anthony explains, "Walking is free. It's an act of radical self-care, and if we just walk for 30 minutes a day, which we are encouraging women in our community to do, walk 30 minutes a day so that they can stay active, get their blood flowing. It helps your mind, it helps the heart, it helps the bones, so it's just healthy to just start walking."
The cause has grown bigger than the health of African Americans as Lovetta Sebbern Girl Trek Bakersfield Mountain Ridge crew leader
shares her idea behind the cause,"We're already trekking, we're already walking, and so the main purpose is for our health, but I was thinking we can also walk for other purposes."
As they walk around the corners of Bakersfield, they give the homeless blankets, shoes, and gloves as they endure the cold months to come.
Anthony homeless for 2 years tells me his struggles,"The cold weather is coming even harder, and mostly homeless people out here don't have a tent or don't have a shelter to go to and are going to die out here because it's so damn cold. And tonight, I have to sleep on a mattress with sheets around the mattress with my friend just to stay warm, you know."
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