ST. GEORGE — Last year, Miss Washington County served her community through dance. This year, she’s looking to make children’s sports dreams a reality as Miss Greater Zion. But she needs some help.

After serving as Miss Washington County, Monthly Move Project founder Alyssia Johnston was on her way to the Miss Utah competition when her director suggested she compete again in the Miss Washington competition. She won a second title: Miss Greater Zion.

“I was actually the first person ever to go to Miss Utah with two titles … I thought that was just so cool to be, in a sense, making history,” she told St. George News. “I think that is such a cool thing, and it was kind of honestly a shock to me. But I’m just so happy and so excited that I get to serve another year.”

Being crowned Miss Greater Zion allows Johnston to continue her work with the Switchpoint Community Resource Center, where she previously served as the children’s coordinator for the Circles program.

She partnered with Circles last year for the initial rollout of the Monthly Move Project.

“I was teaching dance to the Circles program — getting (them) up and moving and out of their heads a little bit because a lot of those kids were going through a stressful time, and I know that helped me when I was littler.”

Last year, Johnston told St. George News that she’d experienced abuse as a child, and dance helped her to “forget about everything.”

“So I wanted to do that for those little kids, just so they didn’t have to stress about anything,” she said. “Because they’re kids, I want them to be kids and not have to stress about anything poverty-wise.”

This year, Johnston said she’s rolling out the Monthly Move Project 2.0, also known as the Athletic Funding Program, with the Stepping Stones Child Care Center. Originally, she planned to work with both Circles and Stepping Stones, but the former lost its largest sponsor and has been “put on pause.”

“This program gives children in the childcare center an opportunity to grow and learn in a new sport that they’ve always been passionate about or even just curious about,” she wrote in an email.

To start, Johnston said she sent out a survey to parents to gauge their interest in the project, primarily seeking out families that could not afford to enroll their children in an athletic program.

“It sounds like a lot of these kids have always wanted to do some kind of sport, and … their family just has not had the funds to do that, and that’s the whole point of this entire program,” she said.

About 19 children have shown an interest, Johnston said, adding that while there isn’t a hard limit to the number of participants, she wants to concentrate on the current group before she considers expanding the program.

“I would have to start with them first to see how this whole process will actually work because I feel like it’s more of a, I guess, trial and error process,” she said. “But I think from there, we can definitely extend it out to the community once I get it fully up and running.”

One child has already begun work on the first step — creating a dream board. The board will include who inspires them, what they want to do when they’re older, what their favorite sport is and why they want to participate in it.

“That’s a chance for the child to maybe do some research with their family and have an interactive project with their family, or with their parent or sibling, to see where their dreams lie,” she said.

Johnston said she hopes the program will be running in the next few months, after which she expects to host a fall camp with visiting athletes from Utah Tech University to teach participants about various sports.

To fund the program, Johnston is looking to partner with local businesses interested in helping children explore their chosen sport by funding classes and other necessities they’ll need to succeed.

“I hope to truly make a difference this year in our community with the help of businesses to sponsor the children in the Stepping Stones Child Care Center,” she said.

Businesses interested in sponsoring a child in the Monthly Move Project can contact Johnston via email or call her at 208-241-6918.

Johnston provided clips of her dancing at this year’s Miss Washington County Competition and speaking at last year’s for the video at the top of this article.

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