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Girls On The Run honor former coach Carrie Ann Gilmore

Elementary school student Elizabeth Boltz is one of three girls that were awarded the Carrie On Award from Girls on the Run.. Photo courtesy of Julliellen Simpson-Vos. 

Elementary school student Elizabeth Boltz is one of three girls that were awarded the Carrie On Award from Girls on the Run.. Photo courtesy of Julliellen Simpson-Vos. 

In May 2016, Gilmore passed away from breast cancer when she was 41 years old.

Girls on the Run in the Triangle area created the #CarrieOn Awards this year in honor of Gilmore.

Juliellen Simpson-Vos, executive director of Girls on the Run of the Triangle, said she was one of Gilmore’s good friends. She wanted to do something to honor Gilmore’s legacy of community involvement.

“Carrie was so involved with community service and she raised her daughters to want to give back and to recognize how important community service, compassion and contribution is, which are part of the pillars of girls on the run,” she said.

The #CarrieOn Award is given to three girls who participate in the organization. There is a winner from each age group: elementary school, middle school and rising juniors and seniors in high school.

Elementary and middle school winners get scholarships to participate in Girls on the Run, as well a monetary award that goes to a non-profit of their choice. The high school winner receives a $1,000 scholarship for college and $500 that they donate to a nonprofit of their choice.

This year’s winners were elementary school student Elizabeth Boltz, middle school student Julia Boltz and high school student Lee Ann Lucas.

Sisters Julia and Elizabeth decided to apply for the award because of their friendship with Gilmore’s daughters.

Elizabeth, a fourth grader at Pearsontown Elementary, said she is happy to be one of the first winners of the #CarrieOn Awards.

“It’s cool that I am the first elementary school winner of the Carrie On awards; it’s good that I’m a part of it,” she said.

Elizabeth picked Just TRYAN It as her charity.

“It gives money to parents who have kids with cancer, so it helps them a lot,” she said.

Julia, a seventh grade student at Rogers-Herr Middle School, said she applied for the award because of Gilmore.

“I knew Ms. Gilmore very well and we wanted to apply in honor of her and ‘cause she was very wonderful and she deserved it,” Julia said.

Julia said it was nice to win the award in Gilmore’s honor.

“I’m really honored that I won it because Ms. Gilmore was a really amazing person,” she said. “I am kinda one of the first representatives of the award, so that’s really meaningful.”

Julia chose Durham-based Book Harvest as her charity.

“I picked Book Harvest because I really like to read and I want to share that with other kids who may not be as fortunate,” Julia said.

Lucas, senior at Leesville High School, coaches Girls on the Run and picked Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as her charity.

Lucas said coaching has been a good experience for her. She said she particularly enjoys the 5K run all participants do at the end of the program.

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“I grew a lot as a person because I had to be a role model for the girls,” she said. “It was rewarding for me to hear that they all had reached their goals and they all had run the 5K.”

@gabmicchia

city@dailytarheel.com