Pittsfield Joining North Adams in Mayor's Fitness Challenge
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Pittsfield Mayor Daniel Bianchi, right, talks about the importance of a healthy community while North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright listens during a news conference announcing the Mayor's Fitness Challenge in both cities. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Little known fact: North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright starts his day by drinking a glass of ice cold Diet Coke. And up until last spring, he spent the day refilling that glass over and over again with soda.
But last spring, when he participated in the city's inaugural Mayor's Fitness Challenge program, he took the advice of Mass in Motion Coordinator Amanda Chilson and made a change: Instead of refilling the glass with soda throughout the day, he refilled it with water.
Those kinds of small changes are the aim of the Mayor's Fitness Challenge.
"This gave me the opportunity to change a few things," Alcombright said Monday. "It's about making subtle changes in your life that will hopefully stick and lead to other changes."
Alcombright was speaking in the North Adams City Council Chambers at an announcement that the Mayor's Fitness Challenge, a national program that came to North Adams last year, is returning this year with a new twist: The city of Pittsfield and its mayor, Daniel Bianchi, also are participating this year in a friendly rivalry between the county's two cities.
Bianchi said that like many other local endeavors this will benefit from getting more county residents on board.
"We're much stronger in any initiative ... when we think of the broader community," he said.
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Top: The North Adams Mayor's Fitness Challenge logo from last year will return this year. Bottom: The logo for Pittsfield is still a work in progress but this is a draft. |
The challenge works by encouraging individuals and teams to sign up for the 10-week program and track their healthy habits using a point system, everything from drinking water to hiking at Windsor Lake and to attending a lecture on nutrition. New this year are "mega bonus points" rewarded to North Adams participants who attend a Pittsfield event and Pittsfield participants who attend a North Adams event. It is open to anyone who lives in or works in North Adams and Pittsfield; prizes will be awarded at the end.
In its inaugural year in North Adams, more than 600 people signed up, Chilson said, with about half that number finishing the challenge and submitting completed forms. That exceeded her expectations.
"We thought, 'Oh, if we can get 100, that would be great,' " she said. "It just kept growing and growing."
Chilson, whose job falls under the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition umbrella, will be coordinating the North Adams challenge, which will kick off with an event Friday, May 8, at 5:30 p.m. at the Northern Berkshire YMCA. Heading up the Pittsfield challenge is Morgan Kulchinsky, the program coordinator of Be Well Berkshires. Pittfield's kickoff event will be Saturday, May 9, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Downtown Pittsfield Farmers Market on First Street.
Registration for both cities is currently under the North Adams Fitness Challenge website. Chilson and Kulchinsky hope to get the word out through Facebook, local media, fliers at community events and word of mouth.
Bianchi promised to spread the news of the program at School Committee meetings to the dedicated school administrators he knows will want to share it with their families and students.
"It is so important we encourage people to think healthier," he said, adding that he sees a strong link between education and health. He recalled a time when he was involved in starting a community garden while a Pittsfield city councilor.
"The first year we pulled the carrots, and this one little kid came and said to us, 'Oh, I thought those were grown in a can," he said. "It's really important for youngsters to understand where their food comes from and what the connection is with their well-being.
"It's such a beautiful thing to impart on our children. It's a great gift."
The mayors of North Adams and Pittsfield banter Monday morning about the upcoming Mayor's Fitness Challenge each city is hosting - North Adams for the second time and Pittsfield for the first. http://tinyurl.com/nxz9zy9
Posted by iBerkshires.com on Monday, April 13, 2015
Tags: #NAMAfitchallenge, fitness center, North Adams, Pittsfield,
