KCFit.net and St. Mary’s Medical Center are challenging area residents to walk one billion steps in 2009.
“St. Mary’s generous sponsorship allows for the Billion Step Challenge to be free for anyone in the community,” said Chris Culbertson, vice president of marketing and sales for KCFit.net.
KCFit.net and Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of the challenge after a successful 2007 competition of walking and weight loss between local companies.
“Instead of the competition-based programs, it is one big goal that people collectively contribute toward,” Culbertson said. “It is for the community and can be community-driven since we rely on one another to each log our steps.”
The challenge launched Jan. 1 and will end Dec. 31.
So far, 107 participants registered on KCFit.net and 22,689,375 steps have been logged.
“The power is in numbers,” Culbertson said. “I hope to see more than 1,000 participants adding their steps to help us reach our goal of one billion. In fact, if we can get 1,000 people to log steps and average just 3,000 steps per day, we would reach our goal of one billion within a year.”
Nothing yet is planned if Blue Springs residents reach the goal of one billion steps.
“We are working with some potential sponsors in order to put on an event,” Culbertson said. “The neat thing is that we will have quantitative data we can use to apply for grants and funding for community efforts to increase the awareness, education, and tools revolving around health and wellness.”
Along with St. Mary’s Medical Center, other sponsors include city of Blue Springs, Blue Springs Park and Recreation Department, Blue Springs Families In Training (F.I.T.) for Health and Wellness, and Club 7.
Blue Springs Ford is also sponsoring the cause by giving away pedometers to registered walkers. Pedometers are small devices affixed on a runner or walker to record the number of steps taken.
Sarah Roberts, an employee at Blue Springs Ford, said, “We have given out around 30 pedometers already.”
Registered walkers and runners can log their steps or the duration of their walk on KCFit.net.
“I just hope the community rallies around something that gets health and wellness to the forefront of people’s minds because it is a problem in our country and as a Blue Springs native, I don’t want it to be a problem here,” Culbertson said.
For more information, contact Chris Culbertson at cculbertson@kcfit.net.
