The Biden administration is focused on a new project amid Israel’s war against the terrorist group Hamas: “improving the mental health of 200 adolescent girls and young women in Palestine through weekly running and wellness sessions.”
In late September, the U.S. Department of State directed a $100,000 grant for a roughly two-year initiative to Free to Run, a Connecticut-based nonprofit organization seeking “to increase the opportunities for women and girls to engage in public life, using sport as a tool of empowerment and education,” federal funding records show. The goal is to build “Palestinian girls’ and young women’s resilience through running,” according to the U.S. government.
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“Sports opportunities are extremely limited or even non-existent in the regions we operate in, due to a lack of resources and insecurity,” Free to Run says on its website.
“These restrictions are often even worse for women and girls in areas of conflict,” according to the organization. “We address this gap by focusing on outdoor sports, supporting girls to step outdoors and reclaim public space to challenge the perception of the roles they can and should play in society. We take participants outside of their usual environments and create opportunities for them to experience the outdoors.”
The grant was routed through the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and underscores how the federal government sends large chunks of change each year overseas to fund Palestinian initiatives — much to the ire of congressional Republicans. According to federal records, the program is being administered in the West Bank. Lawmakers have voiced particular concerns about the U.S. shelling out tax dollars to Gaza and the West Bank after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks against Israel that killed more than 1,200 people in the Jewish state, worrying that aid could end up in the hands of terrorists.
“Why are we investing American tax dollars toward a running program halfway across the world when we have so many issues that need fixing here at home?” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Similarly, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner the Biden administration’s spending habits “confuse the hell” out of him.
“None of this sh*t surprises me, but these things frustrate the hell out of the American people,” Nehls said.
Free to Run was founded in 2014 and has long operated in Afghanistan, where the charity works with local partners to deliver “weekly indoor strength and mindfulness training sessions” for females “cautiously and secretly, to mitigate any possible security risk from the Taliban,” according to Free to Run’s website. The nonprofit group’s total expenses in 2022 were $345,000, and its revenue was $449,000, according to tax forms that Free to Run filed, which said the group held $406,000 in assets.
The founder and president of Free to Run is Stephanie Case, chief of the refugee protection division for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, an agency under the U.N. that deals with Palestinian aid, according to Case’s LinkedIn profile. The agency has faced scrutiny for years from lawmakers and national security experts due to its sharing ties with Hamas and employing teachers who have celebrated terrorism against Jews, including after the Oct. 7 attack. President Joe Biden resumed aid to UNRWA in 2021 after the Trump administration halted cash transfers over concerns about terrorism ties and antisemitism in the agency.
Case, who worked at the U.N. Human Rights office between 2014 and 2022, including in Gaza, recently shared a social media post from a top U.N. official in November criticizing Israel’s decision to raid Al Shifa hospital. The Gaza-based facility is nestled above tunnels used by Hamas for storing weapons and other covert military operations, according to the White House and multiple reports.
“While schools serving disadvantaged youth across the country struggle with funding shortages, the State Department shamefully chooses to divert taxpayer money to support foreign students instead of benefiting needy American students here at home,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Washington Examiner.
But the $100,000 that the State Department sent to Case’s group, Free to Run, is not its first federal handout.
Last September, the State Department pledged $50,400 to Free to Run “to make powerful advances in the leadership skills through adventure sports (primarily running)” for 100 displaced young women in Iraq, according to federal records. And in April 2019, Trump’s State Department awarded the Connecticut-based charity $77,300 “to empower & educate 100 females between the ages of 15-25 in 2 regions and across 4 communities,” records show.
Free to Run and the State Department did not reply to requests for comment.
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Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of the federal spending watchdog group Open the Books, said the latest Free to Run grant only highlights the need for Congress to go line-by-line and stop the government’s “frivolous and stupid spending.”
“I’m signed up for my 10th Chicago Marathon and certainly understand the benefits of running,” Andrzejewski, an avid outdoorsman, told the Washington Examiner. “However, there’s no public purpose for this six-figure grant being underwritten by the American taxpayer with every dime borrowed against our national debt.”
