Media Backgrounder
Sole Sister Ramblers is a global community that connects and empowers women in midlife and beyond, one ramble at a time. Our motto is: everywhere is in rambling distance when you have Sole Sisters!
It was founded by five long-time BFFs who love to ramble: Naomi Weisman, Jane Witherspoon, Jill Cohen Morris, Jill Thomas, and Tara Romoff.
In March 2020, when the Pandemic turned the world upside down, Jill T., living in Pensacola, USA, returned to her summer home on Salt Spring Island, Canada. Lockdowns also caused Jane, who was living in Panama, to head to Salt Spring Island for the summer.
Jill T. and Jane were old friends who had lost track of each other over the years. They reconnected by going on long daily walks while the world was closed. When they returned to Pensacola, FL, and Panama, they decided to stay in touch by participating in a virtual walking challenge.
It was so much fun that they signed up for another one and invited Jill T’s high school friends to join … Naomi, Jill CM, and Tara. Jill CM and Naomi were living in Toronto, Canada, while Tara was in Chicago, USA, preparing to move to Singapore. This tight-knit group of women had remained close friends throughout the decades despite leading lives that scattered them around the globe.
The five BFFs created a Facebook Messenger chat group to log their miles and post pictures while chatting about the ups and downs of our daily lives. Our walks (we refer to as rambles) became the highlight of our days. We named our chat group the Sole Sister Ramblers.
Our chat group enriched our friendships and lives in beautiful and surprising ways and reminded us of the importance of female bonding and friendship, especially during this time of our lives.
So, in the Fall of 2021, we decided to share it with the world and launched the Sole Sister Ramblers platform with a brightly colored winged shoe logo. This is how a ramble chat between five close friends became a global movement where women grow, share, connect, and flourish while rambling through the final chapters of their lives.
We started with a Facebook Group that grew fast, and it quickly became apparent how much our members craved in-person connections. So, in the fall of 2023, we launched our first Sole Circle so women could connect for in-person rambles in their local areas.
The response was overwhelming. We joked that launching Sole Circles felt like making popcorn in a pot on the stove without a lid. It was chaos; we were out of our depth but knew we had created something special. With some hiccups along the way, we are rising to the occasion.
Today, we have almost 7,500 Ramblers from dozens of countries in our Facebook Group, over 10,000 Ramblers participating in Sole Circles in five countries, and approximately 20,000 women subscribed to our weekly Rambler Cafe Blog and Email Newsletter. We are growing faster than any of us could ever have imagined.
We aim to have hundreds of Sole Circles that women can join wherever they live or visit.
As Founders, we publish columns in our Rambler Cafe Blog and share them in our weekly email newsletter. We also encourage our members to share their stories in the Facebook Group and by writing for our blog.
Our content, and everything else we do, is managed and created by our Founders and our community of women in midlife and beyond. We self-fund our operational costs, including our website, email software, and the digital advertising we use to build Sole Circles.
READ MORE > Our Story, Sole Sister Ramblers