- The club is open to all ages and abilities—no pressure, just pace yourself.
- Walks happen every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Cherokee Lake Park.
- Founder Elizabeth Gurza hopes to expand into fundraisers and health awareness events.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
She didn't know anyone but she knew she wanted to make this place feel like home.
I'm Layan Abu Tarboush. I'm showing you how one woman started a walking club to build community and connect with Thomasville.
"I noticed that I was, you know, yearning for community, and I asked around if there was a walk club, and everybody said no, but everyone encouraged me to create one. So, I kind of sat on the idea for a little while, but something kept telling me, just do it, do it, do it," said Elizabeth Gurza. She recently moved to Thomasville with her husband.
Gurza didn't know many people, so she decided to start a Facebook group for a local walk club. She tells me she was shocked when 63 people joined in just one day.
"With walking, we do know that it has health benefits, such as losing weight and helping you with your breathing, but it also promotes good mental health. It helps you decompress, and de-stress at the end of the day, which is why I also chose for us to walk at the end of a workday," said Gurza.
So I walked around Cherokee Lake Park to see if folks would be into this new walk club.
"I come out here just about every day and I walk by myself, but it would be so cool to like just have a group of people that I could like, or like, you know, texting the group chat or something. Hey, who wants to walk with me or can we go or just to be notified about when their planned scheduled walks are? Because I mean, I have some friends, but you know, my schedule is very different from most of my friends. And so I don't have the opportunity to always walk with people. So that'd be really cool."
Another person I ran into was Betty Herber. She's using walking to kick off a brand-new health journey.
"As a matter of fact, yesterday I just went to my cardiologist and he told me I need to make some lifetime lifestyle changes. And one of those things that I told him I was going to do was start walking because I haven't been active. So this is my first day trying to do what the doctor ordered," Herbert.
Walks happen every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Cherokee Lake Park
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