This award recognizes a community’s commitment to improving access to trails and promoting their use and importance for increasing physical activity.
Monthly walking event
The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L) has partnered with St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) to create the Get Your Tail on the Trail program.
This program is being nominated for the Trails for Health Award because it connects people to the opportunities along the 165-mile D&L Trail while increasing health awareness and improving the health status of the health network’s community. By linking St. Luke’s healthy lifestyle expertise with D&L’s recreational and heritage leadership, community members participated in our challenge through structured group and individual hike and bike outings.
For two years during the May-November six-month challenge period, Get Your Tail on the Trail offers monthly events for people to be active through guided bike rides, walks, and runs on the D&L Trail. The events are dynamically promoted through both organizations databases, via email, a highly interactive Facebook page, the Hospital’s Ladies Auxiliary, Cable TV and editorials, as well as the website and trail tracker at www.tailonthetrail.org.
At the end of the 2013 challenge period, there were 2,455 participants who logged a total of 255,392 miles. In response to the unexpected high demand for the Initial challenge that ended in November 2013, a 30 mile-30 days Winter Challenge was created.
In 2014, the second year of the challenge, the program was enhanced further with St. Luke’s employees urged to participate as walkers, hikers, and bikers on the D&L Trail as well as other paths throughout the greater Lehigh Valley. Live Your Life Themes were incorporated into monthly activities and health assessment measurements are being taken to gauge weight, blood pressure, diabetes and nutrition.
Participants have been encouraged to participate in the 165 mile challenge from May 31, 2014 to November 2, 2014. This year, to date, there are 4136 registrants who have tracked an additional 340,287 miles; 780 participants have completed the 165 mile challenge, 313 have completed the 330 mile super challenge and 163 have met the 495 mile triple challenge. For the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, the 165 mile challenge has raised awareness of the trail that is in many residents’ backyards, winding through communities while encouraging people to get outdoors, get active, and explore nature by running, biking, or walking the D&L Trail. The D&L Trail spans five counties, from the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania, along rivers, through the Lehigh Valley and into Bucks County.
Get Your Tail on the Trail is an integral part of St. Luke’s Network "Healthy Living Initiative." For the health provider, it addresses the implementation phase of the national mandate for nonprofit hospitals to conduct Community Health Needs Assessment every three years, and making the same widely available to both community members and public health experts.
2023: Arizona Alliance for Livable Communities
2019: Trails for Health Award: City of Baton Rouge
2017: Quad City Health Initiative, Be Healthy QC Coalition, and Bi-State Regional Commission
2010: Step Into Cuba Alliance
2008: Pottstown Health and Wellness Foundation
2006: Arkansas River Trail Medical Mile Project
2006: Memorial Hospital Foundation - River Bluff Trail, Logansport, Indiana
2004: Jane Lambert
