This past fall a few of my roommates and I found this organization with incredible ideals — CHAARG. CHAARG is a national organization that consists of over 10,000 girls and 50 chapters nationwide and is dedicated to empowering college women to live healthy and happy lifestyles. This was all great! CHAARG partnered with local fitness facilities allowing us to check out a new fitness studio each week and do a kick-ass workout. We all loved UW-Madison’s chapter of CHAARG.

For the spring semester, one of my incredibly talented roommates got a position on the exec team for CHAARG. While our exec team for our chapter was made up of a group of amazing girls that purely wanted to help Madison members live a healthier and happier lifestyle, soon into the spring semester we realized that National CHAARG was constricting our organization from reaching its full potential. National CHAARG is a for-profit organization meaning they don’t have to disclose any salaries or where expenditures are going to.

Each girl that wants to be a part of this organization has to pay $45 in dues and only $5 of each membership is given back to the chapter to compensate for the generous fitness studios that host us and plan socials and events to benefit the members.

Most of the fitness studios will host us for free because we don't have the funds to pay them. If they do charge us, members have to pay out of pocket for these studios. So even though we paid $40 to National CHAARG, none of that money goes towards coordinating these events.

Just in three semesters, National CHAARG has made about $22,000 just from the UW-Madison chapter. What kind of ethical organization that is dedicated to empowering women takes their money and manipulates young college women for wanting to boost their self-image? It’s disgusting.

These amazing girls that dedicate their time to making our chapter great receive no benefits, adversely CHAARG exec teams are being exploited. Not only does Nationals use all our money for unknown uses that don’t benefit our chapter at all, but they force the exec team to promote and buy CHAARG’s “fit plan” which also cost $45. So each exec member has to pay $135 just to be an exec member for CHAARG, they do all of the dirty work — like planning events and organizing workouts — and receive absolutely no compensation or benefits.

When my roommates and I first joined, we thought that our $45 went towards paying for going to these workout studios, we thought this was a great deal, rather than paying $70 a month for a membership anywhere. This is not true though, we are basically paying $45 to have the CHAARG label. Spreading body positivity and self-love is free! We don’t need to give a for-profit organization $22,000 to convey and live by this message.

National CHAARG also has made themselves a very exclusive organization. First off, we are college students — why are we paying $90 a year when hardly any of that money goes towards our workouts? This limits the women we are able to reach because not everyone can afford this service that ultimately should be free in the first place.

National CHAARG also focuses much of their image on branding. The chapters are required to send out these emails containing “Member Mondays.” Member Monday is a spotlight on an individual member and asks them what their favorite workout brand is.

Who cares, right?! No girl should ever be ashamed about whether they can afford Lulu lemon leggings or are an “Under Armor Girl.” Sorry, but expensive brands will not make you more fit.

I will burn as many calories in my Wal-Mart leggings as you will burn in your Lulu Lemons. For our chapter, this does not represent the ideals of what this organization should be.

With all this being said, UW-Madison is disaffiliating with CHAARG. BUH-BYE!

Instead, we are moving forward creating a new inclusive organization, one that helps all women empower other women and creates lasting friendships. Spreading this love and empowerment does not cost money. This new organization will have much lower dues — between $20-25 — and 100% of those dues will go towards supporting local fitness studios and our community of girls.

We do not need the CHAARG label to convey this message.