Fitness Competition (ChallengeWave)

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

Durham County Library and the Durham County Department of Public Health dared residents to take the ChallengeWave – a four-week, community-wide fitness program that pitted library patrons against each other as they competed to rack up the most ‘activity minutes’ from June 15 through July 15, 2013. By linking the fitness competition to the annual Summer Reading Club, the library raised the profile of the ChallengeWave and increased adult participation in Summer Reading, its most popular annual program. In an innovative, inter-departmental initiative, DPH and the library collaborated to meet two separate internal goals: The Department of Public Health’s objective was to get residents to participate in an online fitness tracking program that encouraged healthier lifestyles. The library’s goal was to get more adults to stay engaged in its Summer Reading program. The two County departments joined forces by getting patrons to form fitness teams at five libraries to compete against each other. Then they encouraged those patrons to participate in library fitness programs (like line dancing, Zumba and yoga) that counted toward the ChallengeWave Competition and toward Summer Reading. The goal was to sign up a maximum of 25 competitors per library. Competitors would go online to track and record any type of fitness activity as they represented their favorite library, and the library team that recorded the most activity minutes would win. At the same time, the competitors would be attending library programs and earning points toward Summer Reading prizes. With the tagline, ‘Train your brain with Summer Reading. Train your body with ChallengeWave,’ the joint initiative was a success. A total of 146 residents participated in the fitness competition, which exceeded the goal of 125, and the number of adults who completed the Summer Reading program more than doubled over 2012 figures – from 172 to 367.