Chester County commissioners, along with health department director Jeanne Casner, recently announced this year's WalkWorks ChesCo! goals and challenged all county residents to increase the number of steps collectively taken from 1 billion to 5 billion by the end of the year.
In addition to upping the step count, a new goal has been set for a minimum of 5,000 registrations on the WalkWorks ChesCo! website to track and tally the steps taken toward the 5 billion goal. As of Jan. 29, the county had cumulatively taken nearly 1.7 billion steps and 2,900 people had registered, according to Casner.
WalkWorks ChesCo! is a program that aims to promote, educate and empower county residents to adopt a healthier lifestyle by creating more places for walking, supporting and promoting walking groups, coordinating walking challenges and creating a website that allows everyone to track and tally their steps. It is the county's response to the national Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge, a two-year competition that aims to empower cities and counties across the nation to create a positive health impact. At the end of 2016, the county was selected out of 400 applications as one of 50 members of the HealthCommunity 50 and received $10,000 in community seed funds to establish WalkWorks ChesCo!
The success of the first year of WalkWorks ChesCo! led the Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge judging panel to award Chester County an interim Spotlight Award, which includes an additional $10,000 to support and promote the program for year two.
Commissioner Terence Farrell first brought the national challenge to the attention of his fellow commissioners.
One of the key components of the WalkWorks ChesCo! program is a specially designed website that tallies all steps taken by residents who register to participate. The website syncs with most devices and mobile apps that already track steps, and it also allows users to convert other physical exercise into steps to be manually added.
If judged the most successful Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge program, Chester County will receive $500,000 to be used to further enhance health programs for all county residents. The Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge is a partnership established between the Aetna Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the National Association of Counties.
More information about the program and how to register is available at http://www.chesco.org/walkworks.
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