Westmont, Illinois
Date Issued: December 20, 2019
This past spring, the Village of Westmont encouraged village employees and the community at large to sign up and participate in the Walking to Hsinchu Fitness Challenge, which was conceived by the village’s Health and Wellness Committee. The concept was to have people record their fitness miles over a six month period to see if the cumulative miles of the whole group would be enough to travel from Westmont to Hsinchu County, Taiwan. Hsinchu County, Taiwan is the Sister City of Westmont.
The program kicked off in May and participants sent in their miles each month through the end of October. The group would need to log about 1,500 miles each month to reach their goal. The group ended up outperforming their goal by logging an extra 3,000 miles per month. The original total goal was 8,871 miles, and the group actual logged a total of 27,845.75 miles, which was enough distance to travel from Westmont to Taiwan, back to Westmont, and then back to Taiwan again.
“This was an extremely successful program,” said Health and Wellness Committee Chair Mike Chorney. “Our committee focuses on internal staff health initiatives, but once we agreed to include the Sister City concept in our goal, then we decided to open up the program to the community.”
The program had 32 village employees and 21 residents complete in the challenge. At the December 19 Village Board meeting, fitness challenge participants were recognized for completing the challenge.
“I want to thank everyone who participated in this initiative,” said Mayor Ron Gunter, who also completed the fitness challenge. “This was a fun way to inform the community about our Sister City Program and get fit at the same time.”
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Contact: Larry McIntyre
Village of Westmont
Communications Director/Public Information Officer
lmcintyre@westmont.il.gov
