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Community steps up to take top spot in walking/wheeling challenge

August 25th, 2020

The steps challenge, #Steps2MentalHealth which ran among Points West Living and other Connecting Care operated homes from August 10-23 is now over. The community which logged the most steps is Points West Living Prince Albert. Their secret was to make sure their small collection of fitness tracker armbands were never idle.

All over it

“Residents and care partners were all over it,” says PWL Prince Albert General Manager Heather Sander. “We received 12 step trackers to use for the challenge, and a few of us had our own, but we could have used 20 more.”

“Residents were running down here in the morning to get their hands on a tracker for their morning walk. When they were done their walk, they’d hand it back in, and we’d disinfect it ready for the next person,” says Heather. “I’d estimate that 70 percent of the building had one on them at some point.”

Well-oiled machine

“We registered all of our trackers on the Heka challenge phone app, shared them throughout the day, and synced them to the phone at the end of the day. We were a well oiled machine,” Heather says. “The trackers were never not on someone except when we were charging them; the night person would rotate them all through the chargers.”

Impressive steps

Even with the residents’ help, it was pretty impressive that two of PWL Prince Albert’s employee care partners, Princess Ibiernas (left, above who stepped under the name ‘Noah’), and James Obaniana (Gunner-James) were among the top three finishers of the overall challenge. They logged more than 543- & 505-thousand steps respectively. Marites (Tess) Rodriguez (right), finished in 19th place among the 876 registered participants, with over 400-thousand steps. In case you’re wondering, 525-thousand steps is about 400-kilometers.

“Princess is on the kitchen team,” says Heather, “and she literally ran in place as she did her work. When she would go home at the end of the day, 3pm for her, we’d strap her tracker on somebody else. James and Tess are both work in housekeeping where they get a lot of steps and they shared their trackers as well. They were determined to win this challenge.”

Motivated to get steps

As an independent supportive living community, PWL Prince Albert residents do get exercise, but Heather says this challenge really motivated them to get out and get steps. “They were interested in seeing their steps add up as they went around nearby Rotary Trail, and in our courtyard. They’d tell me, ‘Today I did a thousand steps. Tomorrow I’ll best that.’”

The community is looking forward to celebrating their accomplishments with a courtyard barbeque on Thursday August 27.

Photo: (Main photo, from left) Resident Darlene – returns her fitness tracker to office administrator Denise Dagenais. (Inset) Top steppers from PWL Prince Albert are (from left) Princess Ibiernas, James Obaniana, and Marites (Tess) Rodriguez.

More photos at Flickr: Community steps up to take the top spot in the walking/wheeling challenge