Seniors throughout Wellington and Dufferin Counties who take part in VON (Victorian Order of Nurses) exercise programs have walked enough steps this year collectively to travel across Canada 6.25 times.
VON decided it would calculate the number of steps taken by each participant in every SMART (Seniors Maintaining Active Roles Together) exercise class between Jan. 1 and June 30 to calculate how many times participants could walk across Canada if they worked together.
Crossing Canada, as defined by VON, is traveling 6,688km or 8,829,580 steps from Victoria, British Columbia to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland.
“People are more accountable to exercise programs when they’re accountable to other people or to a goal or a commitment of a team as opposed to just doing something for themselves,” said Kelly Gee, SMART program coordinator. “So, we thought with … the goal to achieve this for Canada’s birthday we would also see an increase in the number of participants and people coming on a regular basis, which we actually did.”
To calculate the number of steps taken in each class instructors wore a pedometer and multiplied the total steps by the number of participants in the class.
In total Wellington and Dufferin SMART program participants walked 55,244,476 steps over the last six months which translates into 41,851km or 6.25 trips across Canada.
There is a SMART program class offered at the Drayton Reformed Church (2,721,400 steps or 2,061km).
There are also two SMART program classes offered at the Palmerston United Church. The first class walked 1,530,270 steps and the second walked 842,044 steps. When combined the Palmerston classes walked a total of 2,372,314 steps or 1,797km in the first six months of the year.
One of the goals of the SMART program is to help anyone 55 years of age or older achieve 150 minutes of physical activity in a week, which is the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines recommendation.
For more information about the VON SMART program visit www.vonsmartexercise.com, email Kelly Gee at kelly.gee@von.ca, or call her at 519-323-2330 ext. 4954.
