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Pictured are, back row from left — Nancy Schulte, Puttappa Dodmane, Myron Toews, Ph.D., Rakesh Singh, Ph.D., and Jill Daley; front row from left — Amy Lussetto, Michelle Varney, Seema Singh, Ph.D., and Kalyan Nannuru. Schulte, Dodmane, Dr. Toews and Lussetto were members of Toews’ Travellers. Varney, Nannuru, and Drs. Rakesh Singh and Seema Singh were members of Varney Express. Jill Daley was the final winner of the UNMC Silver Shoe. |
Toews’ Travellers and Varney Express were the first teams to have all their members reach 1 million steps during the challenge.
Also recognized at the party were Gold Shoe champion Julie Carstens and Silver Shoe winner Jill Daley.
At the party, Jayme Nekuda of the Center for Healthy Living presented some interesting numbers from the challenge.
During the challenge, which ran for one year starting in May 2007:
- 868 participants enrolled;
- 1,177 awards were handed out for reaching 250,000-step milestones;
- 249 participants submitted award sheets indicating they had reached the 1 million step goal;
- 340 participants reached at least 250,000 steps; and
- UNMC employees documented walking more than 294 million steps, which equated to 147,125 miles. This means UNMC employees totaled enough steps during the challenge to walk the circumference of the earth 5.88 times!
(EDITOR’S NOTE: These numbers were compiled from reports submitted directly to Nekuda and do not include the individual step totals reported in UNMC Today, which may or may not have been reported to Nekuda. Long story short — many more steps may have been walked than were reported to Nekuda.)
Nekuda encouraged employees to keep walking despite the challenge being over and added that those who still use pedometers can get replacement batteries for $1 from her at the Center for Healthy Living.