BLACKFOOT, ID – April 16, 2021 – Bingham Healthcare held an awards ceremony to distribute “running shoe trophies” to the winners of their 4-week “Live-to-Move” Wellness Challenge that they held throughout March and April. Throughout the challenge, more than 600 people in East Idaho collectively traveled the distance equivalent to 90,000-plus miles!

“Our goal at the beginning of the year was to introduce a wellness challenge to our employees and the public to help get people moving and to think about their health,” said Valerie Jewett, director of marketing & public relations at Bingham Healthcare. “I would like to thank everyone who participated and recognize your commitment and hard work during the last four weeks. I couldn’t be more excited about the popularity and engagement in the challenge.”

To start, people signed up for the FREE Wellable app, which was customized for Bingham Healthcare. Once they downloaded the app, they were able to sync it with their phones or other devices, like a Fitbit, to track how much they walked or exercised throughout the day. Depending on the activity, like walking, running, hiking, biking, skiing, etc., their steps were converted to Wellable points. Through the app, the participants could see how much activity was engaged in and how many Wellable points they had compared to everyone else in the challenge.

The link to the free Wellable app can be found here: app.wellable.co/bingham

“Almost 500 people signed up within the first three days after we announced the program, and people were engaged immediately,” said Jewett. “A lot of people got competitive, which encouraged them to want to be more active. Within just four weeks, the participants moved 90,623 miles during the challenge, which is comparable to walking around the earth 3.6 times!”

For extra incentive, they gave out prizes to random participants, determined by drawings. The winners received Visa gift cards, wearable devices, like FitBit, beef jerky from Caribe, energy bars, and water bottles, to name a few. Through random drawings, weekly drawings, overall winners, and the gift cards they gave out to people with the app, they had over 50 winners.

Further, in the end, they had three—first, second, and third place—winners based on who earned the most Wellable points. Three people from the community and three people who work at Bingham Healthcare won Visa gift cards, Garmin Fitness Wearable Devices, a free walk or run analysis and a pair of shoes from Bill’s Bike & Run, a Prepp’d Meal Card, and beef jerky from Caribe.

The winners from the community were:

• First Place:a two-way tie!
  • Justin Jackson with 168,000 Wellable points
  • James Frasure with 168,000 Wellable points
• Second Place: Mckenzie Goss with 137,300 Wellable points
• Third Place: Amy Baker with  133,432 Wellable Points

The winners from Bingham Healthcare were:

• First Place: Julie Miles with 123,728 Wellable points
• Second Place: Darschelle Chandler with 54,393 Wellable points
• Third Place: Charlene Guthrie with 48,263 Wellable points

To honor these challenge winners, a ceremony was held on Friday, April 16 at Bingham Memorial Hospital and they were awarded “running shoe trophies” and certificates.

Here are a few quotes from some of the winners during the ceremony:

First place community winner, James Frasure, said: “I was reading a book and one part was about mental walls and how to overcome them. It said ‘When you feel that you’re completely wiped out, you’re actually only 40% done and have 60% left in the tank.’ That’s an idea popularized by David Goggins, a Navy SEAL. That was big for me when I felt I was hitting a wall or didn’t have much left. That helped me to push harder to reach my goals that I had set out before the competition.”

Second place community winner, Mckenzie Goss, said: “I was motivated to win because I wore out my shoes during the challenge and needed a new pair!”

Bingham Healthcare’s first place winner, Julie Miles, said: “My favorite part of the challenge was the feeling of accomplishment after pushing myself harder every day. I told myself I was able to do it, and I did it!”

“We are set to launch a new and even bigger Wellable challenge in the coming months, with even more prizes and incentives to keep Eastern Idahoans inspired to be more active,” said Jewett. “So, stay tuned for more details about this challenge. In the meantime, stay active Idaho!”

Bingham Healthcare would also like to thank all of the sponsors who helped make the challenge such a success! Bill’s Bike & Run, Prepp’d, Teton’s Healthy Hub, Caribe JerkyShop, and thedailyspot.blackfoot.