Park(ing) Day for Fitness - Flagship event in Suceava

Recreational sports activities within the Parking Day for Fitness project were organized in the Suceava Fortress parking lot on September 16-17, 2022. More than 800 people of all ages, especially children and young people, participated in them. During that period, Association Sport for All Suceava had already scheduled a national event in partnership with the Save the Children organization for the organization of an athletic event: Suceava Citadel Marathon. By associating Parking Day for Fitness with the Cetatii Marathon, we increased the visibility of our project and created the possibility for all those who wanted to participate in the marathon to take part in our Flagship event.

Following the agreement concluded with the administrators of the parking lot at the Fortress, the National Museum of Bucovina, we managed to mark and delimit the entire parking lot for safety. In this way, we have created several areas of sports activities for all ages and movement desires: fitness, kangoo-jumps, gym equipment, badminton, archery, field hockey, mini-handball, skipping rope, boxing, freesbee . These were accessed by all participants, the groups being changed frequently.

All the workshops benefited from the contribution of volunteers who were teachers of physical education and sports, with experience in working in public spaces, but also student-sports instructors of the Suceava Sports High School who gained experience in working with children.

At the end of the 2 days of activities, all participants signed up for the children's cross-country races, the popular race, 13 km, 21 km or 42 km within the Suceava Citadel Marathon, being dressed in the yellow t-shirts of Parking Day for Fitness.

The impact on those who carried out the activities in the Fortress parking lot was special, many of them declaring that they did not expect to find such a project there and especially they were surprised that there were no cars and they felt safe.

The dissemination of the project was done with the help of social media, but also with radio interviews and local and regional televisions.

Park(ing) Day for Fitness builds on the existing practices and guidelines provided by Rebar, where BG Be Active and the project consortium are adding an element of a multi-sport day event to offer activities that promote active lifestyles and engage the public. For more information, please check our website - https://parkingdayforfitness.bgbeactive.org/

Park(ing) Day for Fitness is funded by the European Union. The project coordinator is BG Be Active, and the other partner organizations are Placemaking Europe, Association Sport for all Suceava (AJSPT Suceava), V4 SPORT FOUNDATION, Azur Sport Sante, and XsentrikArts.