May marks the beginning of many things.

While it unofficially starts to feel like summertime outside, the turn of the calendar will officially commence HealthCode.org’s Million Mile Month, a health initiative to promote physical activity.

“It’s a really good organization to work with,” said Joan Reinhard, Pencor Wellness Coordinator. “They do initiatives all throughout the year. There are other challenges in the fall and in the winter.”

HealthCode, a nonprofit whose mission is to empower people to live healthier, “supports people and communities by raising awareness, education, and through year-round community-focused, goal-based challenges and programs.”

April and May are both Million Mile Months.

These are activity based challenges for groups or individuals, which are separated by categories such as top state, city, organization, walk/run, bike/cycle and swimming.

Any participant can link a Fitbit and many other devices, or manually enter length or time of activities online.

“The whole goal is to not make it stressful; they want to make it easy; you’re doing it to be healthy. And I think people generally do that,” Reinhard added.

Reinhard said Pencor had almost 50 people signed up in April and she’s encouraging many of the same to sign up again. Anyone worldwide can sign up individually to participate at no cost.

“I did the challenge myself, I started in 2015 as an individual,” said Reinhard. “I enjoyed doing it. I introduced it to Pencor in 2017. Now, we have participants that say they look forward to it every year.”

A donation to HealthCode is not required, but any person who does will receive a T-shirt for the specific challenge.

Reinhard said HealthCode’s initiatives are a great, safe way to be active and unite together.

“The way I keep in touch with people is via email. Even though we are so spread out at Pencor, we can work together to a common cause.”

For more information, visit HealthCode.org.