24th Annual Girls Day Out Coming Up March 7th

Matt Brooks: [00:00:00] Good morning. I’m Matt Brooks on X101
Always Classic in for another edition of Meet Cortland County, and
joining me today in the studio, Amanda Criti and Alyssa Wheeler. Now
Amanda is the marketing specialist, and Alyssa is the development
assistant for YWCA. How’s it going this morning?

Amanda Caridi: Good. How are you?

Alyssa Wheeler: You know, I’m doing great.

Matt Brooks: Now we have a, a fantastic event to talk about today
coming up on March 7th, 24th, annual Girls Day out to be held at
Tompkins Cortland Community College. You can enroll your child now,
but for those who are unfamiliar with the event, Amanda, can you tell us
about Girls Day Out?

Amanda Caridi: Sure. So this is really exciting. Um, this event’s been
around the YWCA for a very long time. Um, it’s shifted over the years,
and the basic takeaway is to empower the girls in our community with,
with, um, a variety of programming, you know, to help them find their
passions. Um, and like the opportunities that are right here in Cortland
County. We wanna provide the program so that the girls in our community can
explore all kinds of passions and careers without limitations
based on gender and gender expression.
Matt Brooks: Yeah, it’s kind of like a lot of open house type of, get your
feet wet in various interests and see what meshes with you.

Amanda Caridi: Yeah. Like, um, one of the activities and Alyssa can
talk about the activities, um, is our career fair, uh, our interactive career
fair. That sort of encompasses the whole vibe of the event

Matt Brooks: And for what age range, uh, is this meant for

Amanda Caridi: It’s girls, um, age 10 to 14. Um, with some soft
boundaries. If girls are really interested in their eight or nine and their
parents were willing to sign them up, they’re welcome as well. And, uh,
wanna mention that it’s says Girls Day Out, but anyone who identifies as a girl, um, it’s, it’s open to anyone who wants to come to the event and For, it’s a safe environment for girls and non-binary people.

Matt Brooks: And it’s not only a a, a great experience for girls growing
up, but this is also a fundraiser impact event where the proceeds from
Girls Day Out actually goes to, [00:02:00] to benefit another program at
the yw.

Amanda Caridi: Right. So, um, while this event is meant to, you know,
help girls, um, it also acts as that fundraiser, like Matt said, um, for our
wellness program. Um, just some background and in 2025, uh, we sort of started slowly
switching our, um, health and fitness program, which it’s been for many,
many years, um, to take a more holistic approach. Um, and now it’s
called the Wellness Program as of officially as of January 2026. Led by
our new director, Brenna Richi. Um, she’s the community wellness director. Um, she’s implemented a lot more wellness programming, but it still offers the same health and
fitness programs like that. Um, people know and love. Um, we offer
weekly and specialty fitness programs, um, that are mindbody,
recreational cardio, all the, all that good stuff. The proceeds of this event. Will basically help retire people on fixed incomes who use their, uh, senior health insurance to access free fitness
programs. Um, for adults. We have group wellness classes
for, uh, all types of movement. Mind body, we have three types of yoga,
two types of Pilates, Tai chi, um, cardio strength training.
And for kids, um, we have swim lessons and gymnastics. Um, which has
been a staple in this community for many years. Um, but we’re also
expanding and have new offerings. Um, we have a weekly kids yoga
class. We have, um, circus arts coming up, um, light saber combat
classes and some family and swim, family swim and gym nights.
Um, so you can get out of the house with your family. Um, it’s all about
being able to sustain that programming so that people can come
together, um, meet with their community, get active. Take a pause from
their daily life. Um, so it’s a really good event. . Um,

Matt Brooks: This is an event that helps the next generation and the
precedes from that help the current generation and just keeps moving
that, that goal of just being as healthy as you can be and [00:04:00] just
overall wellness. And it might be under a new name, but that’s just so you can increase
the services that are under that umbrella right now, let’s talk a little more
about Girls Day Out, uh, Alyssa. What are some of the activities that are
planned for this year?

Alyssa Wheeler: So Girls Day Out has been established for many,
many years. Um, I’m picking up the torch this year.
Uh, but luckily all of my predecessors have done a really good job of
establishing what Girls Day Out is all about. Um, one of our staples of
Girls Day Out is the interactive career fair. Um, that’s where the girls will
have the opportunity to talk to local, accomplished female professionals,
um, understand some of the things that they went through to get to
where they are. They can learn about those organizations and the opportunities that they
have. Um, I’m a Homer local, um, so, and I actually was a Y-W-C-A kid. I
went to the YWCA daycare and starting working at the YWCA and now
getting to development assistant. I’m so excited to work on this. Um, the
girls will have an opportunity to talk to SUNY Cortland, UPD, Intertech,
Lyme Hollow Josie’s journey, and many [00:05:00] more.
Um, so all those opportunities are gonna be really cool for them to talk
about and learn about

Matt Brooks: So many opportunities. It’s, it’s great that they’re all in one
place and it’s in a safe environment that they can ask the questions that
they might be nervous if it was like a traditional career fair, fair, or if they
come to their school and classroom talk about it.
It’s a safe area that they can explore all the possibilities that they can go
with. With the career, lifestyle and and so forth.

Amanda Caridi: I wanted to add really quickly, um, that not only is it
female oriented, but it’s also wide ranging so that the girls, you know, not
everyone wants to go to college. Not everyone wants to have your quote
unquote typical career. It’s, you know, it’s all about, it’s. Trades, it’s engineering. It’s things that
aren’t traditionally right for women. Right? Things, things have changed
now and they can do whatever they want. So it’s a varying

Matt Brooks: it. It, it’s even more like here’s everything and it doesn’t
matter who you are, where you come from, if that’s something that you
wanna work in the direction [00:06:00] for anything’s possible.
How about some of the other activities going on at Girls Day Out?

Amanda Caridi: Yeah. After the Career Fair, girls will get separated into
three groups. Um, if you would like your daughter to be with one of their
friends, they can indicate that on registration, so no worries there. Um,
but those groups will have an opportunity to rotate around three different
activities. Um, one of the activities is an engineering design challenge with Crystal
T’s Field, um, of TST Boces, the P-Tech Academy. Um, they’re in
collaboration in this event. That is an engaged steam based activity. Um,
one of the other activities is Ukulele 101 with Melissa Simmons. She’s
the Cortland Prevention Resources Director and a former music
therapist. That’s where they’ll learn some of the basics of just ukulele and music.
Um, the last activity that the girls will rotate to is Dance Fit with Meg
Peroli. Um, she is one of our contractors at the YWCA. Um, I have
personally not been a part of one of her programs, but I hear
amazing things and I’m really excited for her to join us this year.
To close out the day. The girls are gonna have a pool party. Any girls
that don’t wanna do the pool party, there’s also a bracelet making activity
that’ll be provided for them and then pickup Hopefully all good things
when they’re walking out the door,

Alyssa Wheeler: Hopefully they’ll be really tired.

Matt Brooks: Well, it sounds like a day full activities.
Yeah, it’s a great event, but space is limited. So registration opened up
earlier this month. Where do people go to sign up their children to make
sure they have a spot at, Girls Day Out.

Amanda Caridi: Sure. Um, so you can go to cortland ywca.org or you
can go to eventbrite.com, um, and search for 24th annual Girls day out,
uh, register by March 4th.

Matt Brooks: Just make sure that if you’re going to sign up your child to
go through Eventbrite or directly through the YWCA where the
appropriate link is.

Amanda Caridi: Right. It’s $25 per child. We are all about accessibility
though, so we are offering scholarship to attend. Um, for anyone that
wants to attend, we wanna make sure that.
If you want to come, you can come. Um, so we have a
scholarship form on our website, um, and if you are interested in
sponsoring a girl to help any girl attend the event, you can go to our
website to donate. But we also wanna give a shout to King’s Daughters,
uh, for their generous donation. They allowed, um, the first 20 children to
register at no cost.

Matt Brooks: Wow.

Amanda Caridi: So we have 20 girls registered as of right now. Those
spots are filled. But again, um, if you need scholarship, we want to make
sure that everyone can come who wants to.

Matt Brooks: Now you mentioned the website. There’s for people that
whether they need help signing up ’cause it’s online or they want more
information that might not be on the website.
Well, first off, what’s the website and if for more information, what are
some good ways to. Reach, uh, reach you.

Amanda Caridi: Sure. So, uh, website’s cortlandywca.org. You’ll see
Girl’s Day Out at the top of the page. You can click right there. And then
actually, if you go to our Eventbrite page from that, um, there’s a whole
frequently asked questions list for ya.
Um, but you can also contact, um, you can call us at (607) [00:09:00]
753-9651, or there’s contact, there’s contact information listed. Um. on
the event page.

Matt Brooks: Alright, well, sounds good. Again, this is for the 24th
Annual Girls Day Out at Tompkins Cortland Community College, March
7th. Gotta sign up for your child soon. Space is limited at
cortlandywca.org. I gotta thank you both, Amanda and Alyssa, for taking the time today to
talk about this great event.

Alyssa Wheeler: Thank you so much for having us, Matt.

Amanda Caridi: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Matt Brooks: It’s been another edition of Meet Cortland County here on
X101 Always Classic. I’m Matt Brooks.