‘They welcome us’: Diverse running clubs attract more to sport
When Sidney Baptista took up running almost a decade ago he knew he would need to find a daily route somewhere other than in his own neighborhood in Boston.
The tightly knit Cape Verdean community in Dorchester was home, but it didn’t offer the companionship of other runners. He would instead lace up his shoes and head to more affluent parts of Boston, like the Back Bay, Cambridge, and along the Charles River to practice his hobby. It became an escape, a gift for the mind, soul, and body, he says. And yet, the more he ran, the more he realized it didn’t make sense to shuttle to different neighborhoods just to run a few miles. When he tried to
