By TAYLOR CHRONERT, Four Points News
A friendship that began in a third-grade classroom at River Ridge Elementary has grown into a new venture aimed at helping young women across Austin find friendships of their own.
Vandegrift High School alumni Taylor Dimanoff, Riley Weigelt and Iliana Linahan, all 2022 graduates, recently launched Austin Girls Club, a social group designed to bring women together through events and shared experiences, particularly those navigating post-college life or other major transitions.
The three have been close since elementary school.
“We were all in the same class together, and I honestly just thought that they were the cool girls,” Dimanoff recalled of meeting Weigelt and Linahan. “They were super smart, super athletic and just always a friend to everyone.”
Sports strengthened the friendship. Dimanoff and Weigelt played softball at Vandegrift, while Weigelt and Linahan played volleyball.
“We played sports all together growing up, and we’ve just been friends ever since,” Weigelt said.
After graduating, they headed to different colleges. Dimanoff studied real estate at Texas A&M University, Weigelt played volleyball at Texas Christian University while studying combined science, and Linahan played volleyball at the University of Utah and studied quantitative analysis.
Despite the distance and demanding schedules, they prioritized their friendship.
“We sacrificed weekends so that we could stay in college and grow our college friendships but also prioritize our friends at home and just make sure we see each other,” Weigelt said.
Linahan said some of her favorite memories came from those college years, when the three would reunite and pick up where they left off.
“We’ve been through the best of times, from trips to NYC and Nashville to willingly putting ourselves through pain by deciding to do the ‘Impossible Mile’ and Murph just for fun because we were together,” Linahan said.
The idea for Austin Girls Club also began during college, when Dimanoff casually floated the possibility of starting something together after graduation.
The idea became more serious when Dimanoff created a PowerPoint presentation outlining her vision and showed it to her parents.
“They’ve always wanted me to chase all my dreams,” she said. “They were so blown away by the idea, and they were like, ‘This could be so great for not only the girls of Austin but for you, Riley and Iliana to also grow.’”
When she brought the plan to her longtime friends, they were ready.
“It’s something that Taylor has always talked about, and I thought it was a fun and cool idea,” Weigelt said. “I’m always down to try to make things a reality.”
For Linahan, the club addresses something she believes is increasingly difficult to find.
“It’s been so meaningful because I truly believe genuine human interaction is something we miss in today’s society,” Linahan said. “A club specifically for women to build friendships and community is something I felt Austin was lacking.”
Austin Girls Club hosts events where women can meet in person and make connections. Its first gathering was a Pilates event at Persona Pilates that drew 20 participants, the maximum the venue could accommodate.
The response exceeded their expectations.
“We definitely had more than 20 girls interested, which was really encouraging,” Weigelt said. “It makes us think about events we could do in the future to be more inclusive. We want as many people as possible to show up and be there.”
The trio is already planning more events, although they aren’t revealing all the details just yet. They offered five hints: “Fiji, soccer, rafts, bar and face.”
Austin Girls Club shares event information through its website and social media accounts, including Instagram and TikTok at @theaustingirlsclub. Dimanoff said they have already received messages from women asking about memberships and how to get involved.
For the three founders, however, the significance of what they created became clearest when women began walking through the door at their first event.
“Seeing the community we had only dreamed about on social media actually come to life was such a surreal feeling,” Linahan said. “So many amazing girls showed up, many of them new to Austin and coming alone with various backgrounds.”
Watching those women meet one another changed the way Linahan viewed the idea her childhood friends had created together.
“Watching people connect and friendships start to form made me realize that this whole vision behind Austin Girls Club wasn’t just a social media post anymore,” she said. “It was actually happening.”
