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Student Health Services held their first meeting of “Walk PCC” this past Tuesday. The new program hopes to encourage students to exercise for 30 minutes and discuss healthful lifestyle tips during their class free hour from 12:15 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.

The program’s introductory event was led by health education assistant Stepfon Westbrook and registered dietitian Lorrie Gray.

“Me and Jo Buczko, the health education coordinator, decided we wanted to create a program that allowed students to get more physical activity and at the same time meet students and also, you know, lean about healthy lifestyle tops,” Westbrook said.

Twenty-two students showed up for the free event and received a pair of free sunglasses for their participation.

According to Gray, students will be awarded incentives, like the sunglasses, to encourage them to keep attending the “Walk PCC” program.

“After a certain number of walks we’ll have a water bottle,” said Gray. “Complete more walks and we’re going to have a t-shirt.”

The first meeting of “Walk PCC” had the student participants take a lap around the campus.

Several Associated Students (AS) joined the event as well to support Student Health Services and to hand out flyers to interested students along the walking route.

Gardenia Cabrera, a kinesiology major, was one of the students who attended the event because she had seen it advertised during Club Week.

Cabrera was interested in “Walk PCC” because of her major, which is the study of movement in physical health, exercise and sports.

“It’s fun, it’s very calming and I recommend a lot of people to do it because it’s not tough and it helps you relieve stress,” said Cabrera.

Gabrielle Moton, a student in the nursing program, was also interested in the program because of her major.

“I can’t teach [patients] about being healthy if I’m not healthy,” said Moton.

Although the walk was cut short towards the end due to timing, Gray assured students that following meetings would meet the required 30-minute walk and that there would be more discussions about health next time as well as new routes.

Although this is the first time that the program has been introduced at PCC, Westbrook wants to make “Walk PCC” a part of every semester.

“We are trying it out now of course,” Westbrook said. “Possibly increasing the amount of days because one is not enough, but we want to see how popular the program is and tweak it to increase the amount of participants we have.”

Like Westbrook, Gray wants to encourage more students to exercise, even if it’s not with the “Walk PCC” program. Gray mentioned that the Student Health Services had a handout for students who wanted to walk along a shorter route.

“The idea was you can always get some activity,” Gray said. “You don’t have to go to a gym. It doesn’t have to be something that’s going to take a lot of time. If you’re here you can do it.”

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