Mission:
Rising Hearts is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to amplifying community voices through kinship, movement advocacy, and storytelling. We empower communities by fostering intersectional collaboration, promoting cultural resilience, joy and creating meaningful change for the next generations. Through our programs, we inspire collective action, elevate Indigenous and community centered narratives, creating safe and supportive spaces, continuously learn and show up how we can, and mobilize support for those in need.

Much of the heart work we prioritize is cultivating kinship with brands, companies and groups, while creating meaningful collaborations with the Rising Hearts athletes, community partners and broader movement community.

Vision:
To foster a world where diverse voices and bodies are amplified, celebrated, protected, and empowered through authentic kinship, meaningful collaboration, and advocacy. Rising Hearts envisions a future where meaningful connections between athletes, community partners, and allies spark collective action, inspire positive change, and elevate the stories that unite and strengthen our diverse communities.

Our Programs:
Running On Native Lands Initiative
Running With Purpose Athlete Advocates
RH Charity Runners
Rising Hearts Stories | Filmmaking
Virtual Movement Events | Race Organizing
Consulting - DEI / Collab opportunities / Facilitating Connections

Donate AND HELP support the heart work!

 
 

MOVEMENTS FOR WELLNESS

 

Let’s build community.


 
 
 
 

 

WEAR THE HEART WORK

Be a good relative and celebrate the heart work with Rising Hearts - 9 YEARS!
Celebrate the heart work we do with community across the running and outdoor spaces through meaningful collaborations, kinship, advocacy, and community building through movement and stories.


Mark Your Calendars:

Join us for our 2nd annual #LetThemRun Pride 5k!
Rising Hearts is excited to elevate Pride month by celebrating through movement and community with the  #LetThemRun Pride 5K!

Join us for a run and walk supporting Cal Calamia, the 2SLGBTQIA+ and Non-binary Communities, who are being targeted with violence, exclusion, and legislative policies erasing them and their existence, when it has proven time and time again, they belong. Let's show up as allies, so the 2SLGBTQIA+ and Non-binary communities can show their pride, thrive, and feel supported. And with the registration and donations, we will be able to give back in a financially meaningful way so that they can continue the heart work they do.

+ When: June 15 - 30, 2026
+ Where: Virtual

Beneficiaries:
+ 2hot4hoodies
+ You Belong Outdoors and Beyond

 
 

Join Rising Hearts as we celebrate and support our sacred community for Disability Pride Month. Wear Black to show your solidarity and roll, run, dance or walk in solidarity with our sacred kin! This is our 2nd Annual Disability Pride 5k and we hope to raise enough money for organizations in these communities to show our support.

The colors of Disability Pride

  • Black: Represents the barriers and darkness faced by people with disabilities.

  • Red: Represents physical disabilities.

  • Gold: Represents neurodiversity.

  • White: Represents invisible and undiagnosed disabilities.

  • Blue: Represents emotional and psychiatric disabilities.

  • Green: Represents sensory disabilities.

BENEFICIARIES

Born To Adapt: To expand societal awareness around disabilities and to foster spaces where everyone can have access to the transformative power of movement, community, and the great outdoors.         

Autistic People of Color Fund: The Autistic People of Color Fund practices redistributive justice and mutual aid by returning and sharing money directly to and with autistic people of color. We provide microgrants to Black, Brown, Native, Asian, and mixed-race people in the autistic community for survival, organizing, leisure, and pleasure. We are committed to the principles of Disability Justice, including leadership by those most impacted, intersectionality, anti-capitalist politics, cross-movement solidarity, interdependence, collective access, and collective liberation. Our work is grounded in commitment to ending extractive economies and building and sustaining generative economies.


 

12/3/25 Rising Hearts | Building Kinship Panel

If you weren’t in person with Rising Hearts or at The Running Event, click image or button below to watch the full panel. Thank you to Chris Glover, Fleet Feet Columbus, Safe Space Running and Easton Run Club, for recording this discussion!

Panelists: Zachary Friedley (Born To Adapt), Carolina Rubio MacWright, Daryl ‘Stretch’ Murphy (Easton Run Club, Miles for Justice), Cal Calamia (Non-Binary Run Club, 2Hot4Hoodies), Jordan Whetstone (Rising Hearts) and moderated by Lex Saenz (Rising Hearts, Move Well)


5/28 Recording of Trans & Non-binary Allyship Training

If you missed joining us virtually for this special, much needed training with Cal Calamia, here’s the recording of it!

It’s Pride Month! This is one way (of many) we can show up for the 2SLGBTQIA+ and Non-binary community. Click the button to watch and give Cal a follow on IG and learn more at www.calcalamia.com.

 

The Running Industry Diversity Coalition presented Know To Run: Yatika, Hosted by Jordan Marie Whetstone (Rising Hearts), on October 3, 2023 at 3:30pm EST. It was such a great turnout, with great questions and hopefully, a new perspective for non-Indigenous participants! This is how change happens, even if it is little by little!

Here is the recording below, what to expect:
1. Watch KNOW TO RUN: YATIKA
2. Then view the RIDC recording of the discussion!
3. Learn about land acknowledgements, their importance, and what it means to go beyond
4. Understand the necessity of including local Indigenous communities in conversations on making the running and outdoor community a more accessible and equitable place, and what the consultation process looks like

Continuing the Conversation!
Watch the Trail Runner and Rising Hearts  panel discussion about the past, present and future contributions of Indigenous peoples to trail running.

The discussion will include Verna Volker, Dinée Dorame, Guarina Lopez, Jordan Marie Daniel and Dustin Martin. We will dissect and discuss harms caused by erasing the Indigenous foundations of trail running, and highlight the many ways that Indigenous athletes have changed and continue to lead the sport. The event will also spotlight specific ways runners can decolonize trail running.

Indigenous Peoples are still here. And thriving. Join us for a conversation that is sure to challenge, educate, and inspire.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!