We Run Brownsville Empowers Women Across Generations

Sheila Gordon and Dionne Grayman created We Run Brownsville in 2015 as a community-based organization that aims to promote holistic health and wellness among women living in the Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn. WRB seeks to embolden women of color to prioritize self-care and take ownership of their physical, mental, and emotional wellness.  

“That’s what we set out to do, and that’s what we still do,” said Sheila, NYRR’s manager of youth and community programs and a former bank executive with over 20 years of experience in the finance industry. “Our work centers on empowering Black women.” 

Sheila and Dionne have known each other for over 40 years. “We’re both born and bred in New York and our belief in each other gets poured into We Run Brownsville,” said Sheila.  

WRB promotes “active activism” as a way to re-create an empathetic, non-judgmental support structure that sustains a holistic healthy lifestyle and advances an empowered resistance to systemic barriers. 

“Self-care is an act of self-preservation and an act of resistance,” said Dionne, an educator, coach, trainer, and facilitator. “We unapologetically center on Black women because when Black women are cared for, everybody else benefits. We say, Come as you are, bring your whole selves. Together we lean on each other, love each other, heal and comfort each other.” 

WRB’s group exercise sessions are open to women of all ages and bring together generations through friendship and kinship. The photo above shows WRB members Abena, Marcia, and Yvonne Moore; Yvonne and Marcia are sisters and Abena is Yvonne's daughter.

“We run for our lives in every way possible,” said Dionne.  

NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver remembers the first WRB session he attended, when he was training to run the 2018 TCS New York City Marathon. “There were grandmothers, there were mothers, there were children,” he said. “Young girls were listening to a nutritionist and watching their mothers and grandmothers going around that track. That’s the kind of inheritance you want to give to your children.”  

WRB has played a  healing role in the community during the pandemic. From the first week of quarantine in March 2020, Sheila and Dionne were focused on meeting Brownsville’s health needs—especially mental health.  

“Groups like this helped people to endure last year—through COVID, through the trauma of systemic racism,” said Silver. “It is so important to have groups like We Run Brownsville using our parks to help empower people to live better lives.” In addition to continuing safe outdoor exercise sessions, WRB helped secure grants to provide outreach and wellness packages to members and others in the community.  

“It comes back to collective responsibility,” said Dionne. “When you’re healthy and your kids are healthy that impacts the whole community.”