Members of Hikers for Habitat and Team SOS pose with a penguin statue in a small park near the Council’s main office in Silver Spring, MD. The penguin is the “unofficial mascot” of Silver Spring and is featured in various pieces of art around the city. Clockwise, from left: Corinne Lackner, Emily Voldstad, Doug Stephens, Katie Basiotis, Susan Robinson, Colleen Beaty, and Sara Barnas.
Monday, October 31, 2011, marked the completion of Montgomery County, Maryland’s 2011 Walk & Ride Challenge. A group of staff of the Wildlife Habitat Council’s (WHC) main office in Silver Spring, Maryland, participated in the challenge, which ran from October 10-28, 2011. The challenge aimed to encourage employees in parts of Montgomery County to incorporate walking into their daily routine by considering alternative commute modes, like public transit, carpooling, biking, and walking, to driving alone and sitting in traffic. The Challenge was run in partnership with the North Bethesda Transportation Center, Bethesda Transportation Solutions, and Montgomery County Commuter Services.
WHC employees formed two teams for the challenge: Hikers for Habitat and Team SOS (Sustainable Office Stewards). The team members each wore a pedometer to count the number of steps taken during the workweek, and logged these steps on the Challenge’s website. At the completion of the challenge, WHC’s Walk & Ride teams had taken 819,380 steps during the challenge.
Participation in the Walk & Ride Challenge is one of the steps taken by WHC as part of its involvement in the Montgomery County Green Business Certification Program. WHC was originally certified by the program in January 2011, and will be able to include its participation in the 2011 Walk & Ridge Challenge on its next recertification application. Certification in the Green Business Program is a demonstration of WHC’s commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship.
