PUPS: Hard at work to promote healthy living

In June, the Saline PUPS (Pick Up the Pace, Saline!) coalition launched a community-wide campaign to increase awareness of the improvements they made to Saline to make walking and biking easier and fun. Using Washtenaw Steps Up funding, they designed, along with help from the Design Hub, a series of PUPS-O-GRAMS, tiny ads with a common look and feel that ran weekly in the Ann Arbor News and local Saline paper. Each of 12 ads featured a different enhancement PUPS has made, such as creating the Depot Trail, adding benches and public art to walking routes, creating route maps and a mural, adding bike parking around town, and creating a community gardenall in the name of making Saline an Active Living community. See an example of a PUPS-O-GRAM.

Since June, PUPS has also held three very successful community walks. The first walk was held on the Depot Trail, where walkers enjoyed the new plantings, bike parking, and public art recently placed along the trail. In July, walkers trekked from the Saline Farmers Market to the new Community Garden, where all 22 beds were beginning to bloom with fresh vegetables and flowers. Finally, in August, walkers gathered to go on a tour of the historical district downtown. Walks were co-sponsored by local businesses and PUPS t-shirts were given to the approximately 50 participants at each event. The walks will continue to be held monthly. Other promotional campaign strategies to spread the word included the creation of nifty weather-proof sandwich boards, radio and local cable access announcements, a PUPS website, and well-distributed flyers.

Great work, PUPS! Thanks for getting the word out about healthy living and all the wonderful things you are doing to make it easier for people to be healthy in Saline.