Fitness: Community | Try This West Virginia

Sponsor a Girls on the Run program

… doing more than they thought they could

Encourage mountain biking

Tucker County HS bike club on the roll

Agitate for everyday recess

Exercise helps kids physically, academically, socially

Create a watershed association to protect and promote streams

West Virginians have formed more than 70 watershed associations, most small. The biggest groups – Cheat River Watershed Association, the Coal River Group and Deckers Creek Watershed Association – have staff and headquarters. They sponsor regular paddling trips and special events such as paddling festivals, runs along the river, children’s river festivals. They advocate for water quality with local, state and federal government and...

Help others while you get fit.

Offer ways for residents to exercise while they help their community

Open safe public access points to rivers and lakes

Can’t paddle if you can’t get on the water

Put up bike racks

When there are bike racks, more people ride bikes.

Apply to be a bike-friendly community

Official bike-friendly status gives communities a powerful economic development tool.

Offer beginner running classes.

Give people a comfortable, encouraging way to start.

Adopt a complete streets policy.

Smaller towns may not need bike lanes, but may need sidewalks, bike racks, etc.

Build and connect trails.

Encourage biking and hiking! Give yourself an economic development plus.

Get your river designated an official water trail.

It makes you eligible for more grants.

Rock Climbing

West Virginia is just beginning to explore the potential.

Start a diabetes coalition.

Since 2000, more than a dozen communities have created coalitions.

Make your community more walkable!

How can your streets be safer for bikes and pedestrians?

Get parents and kids exercising together.

When kids see parents exercise, they want to.

Start a kids’ running program

Make it fun, and they’ll come!

Build a park and/or playground.

Volunteers and government working together

Paddle and row the rivers and lakes

“West Virginia has beautiful rivers, and I’ve got grandparents on both sides who died of heart disease, so I’m determined not to get it,” Brent Samples of Charleston said. Among other things, he hits West Virginia rivers with his kayak whenever he can. Samples is not alone in his enthusiasm for paddling. West Virginia has some of the best paddling in the East, and...

Encourage bike commuting / Make a safe biking map.

Huntington city planner Breanna Shell wants to make Huntington a Biking city with a capital B. She decided bike commuters – including her – should have an easily-available map of the friendliest, safest bike routes. “It’s important for the map to show roads that have wider lanes and less traffic, good surfaces,” she told WV Public Radio. She wanted people to know that, “although...