Employees walk into fitness initiative
Patti Rogers
News Writing Student
OCCC employees participating in a month-long wellness initiative logged more than 4 million steps in the first three weeks of October, said Lisa Vaughan, Risk Management coordinator and campus Wellness Taskforce chairman.
Vaughan said the initiative, held during National Walking Month, was designed to promote healthier lifestyles.
“The goal was to get people a little more conscious of their daily activity in hopes of it becoming a part of their everyday life,” she said. “We geared our effort toward the staff, but we eventually want to encompass students and, ultimately, the community as well.”
Vaughan said 66 employees signed up for the challenge.
Participants received a pedometer, compliments of the United Way, to track their steps, and each person was assigned a motivational buddy, she said.
Everyone set his or her own personal goal for the number of steps to walk each week.
The goal of 10,000 steps in a day is a rough equivalent to the Surgeon General’s recommendation to accumulate 30 minutes of activity most days of the week.
While program participants were responsible for logging their personal activities, Vaughan said she led walkers on a 1.04-mile trek — about 2,382 steps — along the campus indoor walking trail at noon on Tuesdays throughout October.
The path, which starts outside the president’s office, is marked by simple signs — laminated color copies crafted in-house — that can be easily missed, she said.
Another of Vaughan’s efforts, however, will result in new signs she hopes will be more visible.
“We applied to Wal-Mart for a grant in August and were notified recently they were awarded a $1,000 grant to mark the trail,” Vaughan said. “Our goal is to make it where community members can come and follow the indoor trail without getting lost.”
Vaughan said the Wellness Task Force hopes a signage committee that is working on getting uniform signage across campus will include the signs for the indoor walking trail as part of their project.
The $1,000 grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation would be used to offset the cost of the indoor walking trail signs.
Ralph deCardenas, Student Accounts coordinator in the Bursar’s office, and his motivational buddy, Paula Whitehead, Institutional Advancement assistant, regularly joined Vaughan on the Tuesday walks indoors.
DeCardenas said he increased his daily steps goal more than three-fold by month-end.
Both he and Whitehead, who is accustomed to walking for exercise, agreed the program has been good for them, and both said they are committed to continuing to walk their way to better health.
“We need to keep this up,” Whitehead said to deCardenas.
