Motivate the First State: Count your steps in charitable donations

By: Heather Gries

There’s an outbreak of fitness fever popping up in our communities and Delaware is not immune to the cause. There’s an ongoing, innovative campaign called “Motivate the First State” that launched on June 1.

Governor Markell is challenging Delawareans to achieve one million miles of physical activity between June 1st and December 31st. “Join me on the trails, sidewalks and bike paths.” he said. “Together, we can log one million miles of physical activity and make each step, each pedal stroke count for Delaware charities that help our kids, our families and our citizens with special needs.”

The statewide campaign is aimed to encourage Delawareans to participate in regular physical activity and will reward participants with contributions to three Delaware charitable organizations – Special Olympics Delaware, Boys & Girls Clubs of Delaware, and The YMCA of Delaware.

All Delaware residents are invited to participate in the campaign. Track your movement through the easy to use online community powered by Plus3.com, the campaigns technology platform. Logging your activities on the website can be done manually, by hand (using the honor system), uploaded from compatible trackers like Garmin and Fitbit, or with the Plus3 app, available for Apple and Android devices. The website gives option to share your postings on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Contributions can be made by completing activities such as walking, cycling, by choosing water over soda and eating fruits and vegetables. Each healthy choice earns a specified amount of kudos determined by Plus3, one “kudos” will earn you one penny. Don’t worry if you forget to log something that day because you can log your activity completed up to one week previous.

The online community allows you to connect with other participants, add “Friends” and share your activity. Motivate the First State is the Plus3 designed Clubhouse and within the clubhouse Delawareans can log, publicly or privately, as individuals, or participate as a team. Additionally, participants can join an ongoing team and incorporate their contributions.

Jason Danner, Regional Vice President, Market Leader, Kelly Benefit Strategies Group, says this campaign is a “win, win, win” for all parties involved “Make every time your active count for charity”. Jason, who serves as a representative for Motivate the First State says the goal is to have 5,000 people logging their efforts consistently. This will serve as a baseline for the coming 2016 year.

Motivate the First State is hosted by the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Kelly Benefit Strategies Group, Inc. Other partnerships for the campaign include Delaware Division of Public Health, Sussex County Government, Sussex Outdoors, Healthier Sussex County, Sussex County Health Promotion Coalition, Bike Delaware, Kent Kids, and Races2Run.

(You can sign up for FREE at www.motivatethefirststate.com to join the campaign.)