Healthy Meetings at EduKids Inc.

The EduKids Wellness Program began in 2013.  We introduced it by holding a contest for staff members to name the program.  After numerous entries and voting - EduFit was born!  We introduced EduFit to employees as a fun, enjoyable offering to promote healthy lifestyle choices and assist them with their own personal goals. 

With over 300 employees, 13 centers throughout WNY and our headquarters located in West Seneca, N.Y., coordinating activities and promoting healthy initiatives can be a daunting task!  We started by incorporating the EduFit Wellness Calendar in our monthly staff newsletter along with Independent Health's wellness tips. This helped get the word out about the program so that staff would begin recognizing it and its logo.  With additional help from IH's wellness team, we provided staff with Health Education E-Seminars about back safety, smart grocery shopping, and physical conditioning.

We moved on to a "biggest loser" style competition called Thin to Win!  We hold this event on an annual basis and each EduKids center competes with their own staff for an employee winner. At the end, our Wellness Team calculates the center with the highest weight loss percentage to win a free health-focused breakfast or lunch for all staff at that location!

For the past four years, EduKids has participated in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge - a 3.5 mile race.  With 150+ participants, it's a fantastic turnout!  We encourage participation in various ways.  We appoint a Center Captain at each EduKids center to get staff excited and lead their center to increase participation.  We reimburse staff part of their registration fee and, as an additional incentive, we reimburse even more if they finish the race in 45 minutes or less!  The center that has the most staff participation receives a free meal of their choice (breakfast or lunch).  Staff are also responsible for creating our team t-shirts by drawing a logo and slogan.  We have an awesome time in our tent with healthy foods, like wraps, fruit and veggies (along with some treats, of course!).

This past year we participated in the March of Dimes event March for Babies.  This was a two mile walk around Canalside. Other EduFit events we've held include Zumba, Yoga, Spinning, Thai Boxing, and TRX- Total Body Resistance Exercise! We've held various "Jeans Days" for charities to raise awareness and help those in need:

• Wear red Day for American Heart Association
• Wear pink for Susan G. Komen
• Wear blue for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
• Wear purple for Cystic Fibrosis
• Wear purple for March of Dimes

This plan year, we coordinated EduFit with a wellness incentive directly tied to a health insurance premium discount for participants next year's coverage.  It's called our Wellness Tracker.  Specific activities have been assigned a point value (between 25 to 50 points each), and if the employee completes enough activities to reach a total of 200 points, he or she will receive the discount and free gift!