The getfit fitness challenge is the brainchild of staff member Kim. In 2004, as editor of the now-defunct health@mit newsletter, she had an idea for making a bigger health impact on campus through a fitness challenge. During the pilot year of getfit in 2005, she laid out the program hallmarks: participating as part of a team, counting exercise minutes, going on tunnel walks, and free T-shirts for all.
Almost 1,300 people signed up to participate that first year. It was hard work to keep the program running with a team of seven people, all of whom had other, full-time, job responsibilities. Kim remembers, “I would get here early in the morning and hang maps in the tunnels, and I led all the tunnel walks myself the first year.”
The first challenge did more than raise the activity level of the participants; many also shared stories about how getfit had increased their sense of community at MIT, an unexpected result that delighted the organizers. Kim feels that “getfit made a difference in the way the community viewed MIT Medical. It let everyone at MIT know that we care about them, regardless of whether they get their health care here or not.”
The getfit organizing committee was recognized with an MIT Excellence Award in 2006.
