Friend, Welcome to ICM's inaugural newsletter!

Welcome to our first newsletter!

Dear Friend,

In the past six months since our last email, I Challenge Myself served 168 middle and high school students in online fitness, cooking, gardening, hiking and group fitness certification programs. As we usher in the start of a new school year unlike no other, we face challenges and opportunities. To help inform our plans to navigate the uncertainties ahead, in July we convened a group of stakeholders to help us answer the following guiding question: How does I Challenge Myself position itself with the rise in cycling, health disparities laid bare by COVID and racial inequalities?

To that end, we have launched our first inter-generational cycling program for adults and children in Washington Heights. In the coming weeks, we will launch our high school cycling and leadership program and our middle school cooking, hiking, gardening, fitness and cycling programs.

Internally, we are participating in anti-racism training and exploring ways to more deliberately integrate social justice work into our programs.

We are excited to share some of this work with you in our first-ever quarterly newsletter, and look forward with sharing more updates with you in the future.

Lastly, with a looming election, we encourage you to complete the 2020 Census, register to vote, and vote on November 3rd.

Thank you,
Ana and the ICM Team

Ambar Nunez

(she/her/hers)
15 years old
High School for Media and Communication

Ambar Nunez connected with ICM's Digital Media Specialist (and also program alum!) Sayra Solis, to reflect on her experiences in our Cycling Smarts program. Read more below about what Ambar had to say about the program...

I joined the Cycling club from I Challenge Myself in my freshman year 2019. The program helped me a lot both physically and mentally. Physically it helped lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. And mentally it helped me improve my mental health a lot. I guess getting used to using the bikes was a little challenging for me. The way I faced it was by asking the coaches and my teammates for help when needed. I have learned a lot of things in the years that I have been part of the cycling class but something that I could say that I learn is that I should always have faith in myself and never give up no matter how hard things get because your hard work would always pay off. I have impressed myself a lot during these years, I never thought that I would be helping the coaches run the club with another member or working for ICM as an intern for a community cycling program. A lot of people have kept me motivated throughout this program but there's two specific people who have believed and motivated me since the beginning of the program and they are coach Garcia and coach Kaleem, I’m really thankful that I had them as my coaches.

Ambar's advice for her past self:
What I would say to the ME before joining the program is that things are going to be a little hard at first, you will have your thoughts of quitting but please keep trying because at the end your hard work would pay off, new opportunities would come to you because you never gave up and show many people what your capable of doing.

Ambar's advice for future participants:
I will like to tell you everything that I like about this program but it would probably take pages. One of the many things that I like about the program is the people that work for this program. I would probably not be in this program if it wasn't for them. I also like the environment of the program and the new opportunities that are given to the participants. There's nothing that I disliked about this program.

Healthy Heights on Wheels kicks off!

Thanks to the Community Grants Program from Citi Bike, we were able to launch Healthy Heights on Wheels, a free 8 week family learn-to-ride program for adults and children as young as middle-school in Washington Heights this past weekend. The program includes bike drills and short rides to get comfortable riding and to gradually increase ability to ride for longer distances around neighborhood.

We want to thank to NYC Department of Transportation, whose donation ensured that every participant receives a free helmet, and we also want to send a big thank you to Ozzie at Tread Bike Shop for their support in transporting bikes for our younger participants. We look forward to sharing more updates as the program continues!

See our Journey

Virtual summer program Washington Hikes

Washington Hikes, our remote summer program of the Healthy Heights initiative for rising 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and their families, ended successfully in the middle of August after 6 weeks.

Participants were matched with a coach to set fun goals and receive weekly challenges, including hiking/walking to various destinations in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx and explore their community. Each Explorer received a Fitbit at the beginning of the program to help track the number of steps they take and water they consume each week. Each week built off the previous, with increasing challenges in the number of steps, water consumption, and destinations visited.

Click on the "See our Journey" button to see some of the stats from this summer!

Welcome Our New Staff!

We are so excited to introduce the newest ICM team members:
Asma Asghar (she, her) Research Assistant
Ben Sadoff (he, him) Program Manager
Jenna Frasier (they, she) Development & Communications Officer
Sayra Solis (they, she) Digital Media Specialist
Ambar Nunez (she, her) Cycling Apprentice
Lester Torres (he, him) Cycling Apprentice
Lina Gonzalez (she, her) Cycling Coach, Healthy Heights on Wheels

Update on Spirit Awards

Given the impact of COVID-19 on our ability to host gatherings, we have postponed our yearly Spirit Awards until Spring 2021. We are still planning ways to gather and celebrate with you (virtually!) this Fall – stay tuned!

Help ICM win $5k with Manhattan Mini Storage!

ICM has joined forces with Manhattan Mini Storage for a fun online social media competition! When you vote for your favorite Manhattan Mini Storage ad, ICM has the chance to win $5,000.

To vote, please go to the Manhattan Mini Storage Give Back website and choose the ad attached to ICM!

Be sure to follow ICM on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for updates!

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