Geary Community Hospital hosted a celebration ceremony for their hospital wide Walk Kansas team challenge Thursday.

Walk Kansas, an eight week statewide healthy living challenge, was facilitated locally by the Geary County K-State Research and Extension office and ran March 15 – May 9. GCH turned the wellness initiative into a friendly hospital wide challenge and had a total of eight GCH teams with six members per team participate.

Throughout the challenge, each team logged their daily activity along with the total amount of fruits and vegetables consumed. Each team’s mileage progression was tracked on a Kansas map. Collectively, the eight teams walked a grand total of 9,671 miles, almost the perimeter around the entire United States. A traveling trophy was presented to the winning team with the most miles logged. The trophy will be passed around to the winning team each year. Raffle prizes including gift cards from Manhattan Running Company, GCH bags and a “fitness basket” were given away to other participants as well.

In addition to the hospital wide team challenge, two teams added another wager to compete against each other, with the losing team washing the winning team’s vehicles. A bucket with scrubbers, soap and gloves was presented to the losing team.