Virtual Walkathon
The Walkathon was a collective solidarity walk of 2219 km (the distance from Singapore to Battambang) targeted to be completed in the month of September and was symbolically flagged off on 1 September 2021 to start our Battambang Mission 2021. Around 70 friends and family of the ACTS community walked, jogged and ran for almost a month, using the free-to-use Strava app on their mobile phones to track their running or walking distance, and the distances were consolidated and tracked weekly in a private club on the Strava app.
After a slow start of 175km in the first week, many being new to Strava, participants started to clock more distance.
By the middle of the month, our participants got the hang of using Strava and we hit 897km, “reaching” the Thai border.
Though our walkathon participants could not gather to walk together, people cheered each other on remotely and encouraged each other by posting words, photos or reflections on the Strava app.
All our walkathon participants came to walk because they shared the common purpose of doing their little part in Solidarity with the Cambodian communities. The sense of community, comradarie and shared purpose was lovely to see.
Over in Cambodia, they were cheering us on too, even though they were disappointed not to be able to take part due to the difficulties our Cambodian friends had in accessing the technology we were using to track the distances. We will figure that part out the next time !
By the third week, we could see many participants pushing to meet personal targets. Some healthy competition was also observed with names on the leader board changing frequently day by day. For others who would ordinarily not get off their seats to walk, the draw of common purpose saw them contributing their mileage in the spirit of things.
The week ended with us at the outskirts of Bangkok, a significant milestone.
Finally, on 27 Sep, 27 days after we started and 3 days before the end of the month, we “arrived” at the Battambang Parish, collectively walking and running a total of 2219km. The event saw S$19,700 raised, equivalent of love parcels to feed 394 families. Thank you for your joyful comradarie, generous support, time, energy and enthusiastic commitment to logging the distance!