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This one-month event encourages students and Mayors to lace up their sneakers and get moving!

The goal is to increase the health of children by encouraging them to walk and run at school. The school walking challenge builds team work, enhances school pride, and increases public awareness of the opportunity for children and adults to improve their healthy while walking. Here’s what a few of them told us about the program:

Tammy: We enjoy the Mayor’s Walking challenge so much.

Gordon: Well the secret is that you have to plan out the day. That means getting up at “oh-dark-30” and putting in an easy 5 to 6 miles in the morning.

Gheen: I just thought if we could figure out how to get the kids involved in the school, we would get the parents involved, and we’d have a healthier place to live.

Gordon: Throughout the day, I would do anywhere from two to four mile increments.

Tammy: What I really like is the ability to connect with them. You find out more about our kids and more about our community through our kids.

Gheen: You don’t realize it until you actually do it, you’ve got a total different outlook for your community when you walk – what the roads are like, what the houses are like, what the citizens are like.

Tammy: This is a unique program that not only exhibits the importance of activity, being active, being committed to walking or running every day, but it’s also an investment in the community.

Gheen: People from the community come up, “Really think what you’re doing’s a great deal,” and you see more people walking.

Gordon: It helped me drop 10 pounds like that!

Gheen: I want to see our community become closer knit, and I think through programs like this we can become closer knit.