From Beaufort County Community College

 

A new health and fitness program at Beaufort County Community College is aimed at improving the health and fitness of the citizens of its service area. The Get Beau-FITT! program will start with a kick-off event on Oct. 27 from noon to 1 p.m. with a brown bag lunch and again from 6-7:30 p.m. with giveaways and sessions on health and fitness. These Brown Bag Healthy Speaker series luncheons will run monthly until May 6, 2016.

“This is a great way to start your exercise program,” said Julia Crippen, BCCC coordinator of special projects. “At our kick-off event, we will give away Garmin Vivofit fitness bands to the first 40 people who agree to be a part of our Fitness Monitoring Program, targeting a healthy community. At the kick-off we will walk on our IMFITT fitness trail and set up times for the assessments by Vidant Health Center.”

There will also be a demonstration of three new pieces of balance equipment at Station 4 on BCCC’s IMFITT trail, a 1-mile path through campus with exercise equipment stations. The programs and events, like the trail, are open to the public as well as students, faculty and staff.

The Garmin fitness bands will be used to track the number of steps taken by participants, who will compete in teams to achieve and maintain high activity levels until the conclusion of the program in May; the fitness bands will be theirs to keep. There will also be giveaways including kayak and paddleboard rentals, Vidant Wellness Center memberships and BCCC gym memberships.

Each month, there will be a Brown Bag Luncheon with guest speakers on a variety of health and nutrition topics, including exercise on a budget, motivation, aating around the holidays and healthy eating for the small child. A daylong health fair on May 6, 2016 will wrap up the program.

The fitness program is part of a $25,000 grant through MDC Healthy Places, an initiative to find ways to incorporate community colleges as change agents in improving community health outcomes by conducting research and analysis of the colleges’ current and potential roles in influencing healthy behaviors in their communities.

The kick-off event will be held at noon (lunch speaker) and 6 p.m. on Oct. 27 in Building 4, Room 102A on BCCC’s campus. For more information, call 252-940-6271 or email Julia.Crippen@BeaufortCCC.edu.