Winter in Canada can be rough and sometimes it is hard to get your body moving! Enter Fauna’s 30-Day Movement Challenge! With -20C days and centimeters of snow on the ground, the winter months can seem endless! This year, the Fauna team decided we should try something new to get everyone through the darkest days of the year.

The Movement Challenge

At the end of January all the staff participated in what we called “30 days of Movement”. The idea was for 30 days we would all move a little extra. Our goal was to add at least 30 minutes of additional movement every day for 30 days. We defined the “movement” in our Movement Challenge broadly and included activities as simple as doing some gentle stretching to playing sports to full-out full CrossFit workouts. It all counted!

Caregiving is Physical Work

Even though animal caregiving is already a very physical job, sometimes you just need a little push to get you through the winter. Shoveling those skywalks can be hard work if you don’t stretch. Daily cleaning and laundry for 12 primates takes stamina. A little boost of endorphins is always helpful to keep your energy up for those sessions of chimpanzee chase!

Please note: At the time the images and video in this post were taken, caregivers at Fauna were required to wear gloves and masks for all food preparation and feeding. With the recent developments with the Covid-19 virus, our caregiving staff are wearing masks and gloves at all times. Read our COVID-19 update for more information about how we are caring for our residents at th is difficult time.

The Challenge Board

As an extra incentive to get us moving we made a movement challenge board you can see at the top of this post. Every day that someone completed their 30 minutes of extra movement they got to choose a sticker and put it next to their name. It might seem silly, but those stickers were a big HIT!

The Movement Challenge is Here to Stay

Our 30-Day Movement Challenge has been a great success. Not only did the staff get moving, but some of their animal companions joined in as well. Staff also took advantage of beautiful winter days to hike and cross country ski in the Fauna Conservation Area. Yoga, stretching, skiing, cross-fit… we did it all!

We have definitely started a new winter survival tradition here at Fauna!

 

 

We could not do what we do without your generous support. Securing our supply chain for the weeks to come has put  an added burden on our operating budget. Your donations go along way in helping us deal with this current crisis we all face. Thank you!