What is Dirty Girl Adventures? It’s a lot of things, but mostly it’s a community of women who are committed to building each other up. Founded in 2014 by Jennifer Woerner and Denise Selbee-Koch, DGA has been empowering women and creating friendships ever since.
These two powerhouse ladies are active year round planning and guiding hiking, camping, and kayaking adventures. “We started seeing the benefit of the outdoors on mental as well as physical health,” Jennifer said. “We hear it all - I’m too old, I’m too fat, I never learned...we meet you where you are and challenge you to have fun learning something new in a friendly, non-judgmental environment.”
The Dirty Girl Creed is evidence of this empowerment and acceptance: Dirty Girls are all different and they accept other Dirty Girls as they are; black, white, brown, tall, short, fat, skinny or strong, gay or straight, loud, quiet, shy, or silly. Dirty Girls are all beautiful in their own way. Dirty Girls are mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, friends, single, divorced, married, but above all, strong in spirit and independent.
Denise, who is a licensed master’s level social worker, and Jennifer, who is an occupational therapist who does home health, met 20 years ago working at an alternative high school. Both women have experience in life skills therapies, environmental education, outdoor adventure, fitness, and nutrition. “We use our unique backgrounds with intuition and purpose to empower our members,” Denise shared. “We love to teach and learn.”
Besides outdoor adventures, DGA also offers other experiences to encourage, empower, and motivate women from free one-hour discussions to month-long classes like Mindful Mondays, Love Me, yoga, and more. “Women are socialized to be givers and caregivers,” Denise said. “Our self-care classes teach women to be healthier by taking care of themselves, by examining thoughts and feelings, and by creating healthy boundaries.”
The classes are held at Compass Point, their basecamp located at 800 North Kansas Avenue in NOTO, the arts and entertainment district in Topeka. There, they also have a retail shop with health and wellness items as well as outdoor equipment to help you adventure on your own. You can even enjoy a bar, live music, and food trucks in their outdoor courtyard on the first & third Fridays of the month from April through October.
“We are offering an experience you can’t get anywhere else - adventure, fun, self-growth, building others and yourself up,” Jennifer said. “Invite your friends to come on an adventure with us!” BTW - dirty dudes, dirty kids, and people of all ages and abilities are welcome. Visit them at Dirtygirladventures.com.