Walk2Connect

Walk2Connect

The Walk2Connect program of America Walks helps to build a more human and connected world by empowering individuals, community groups, and businesses to experience the benefits of person-to-person, shoulder-to-shoulder connection – what we call “life at 3 mph.” Rooted in the simple act of walking*, Walk2Connect grows the walking movement by inviting communities down pathways toward sustained communal health and stronger community relationships. 

Walk2Connect programming helps develop Walking Movement Leaders. We provide them with skills, education, and inspiration to connect with neighbors and build communities that meet their unique needs. Walk2Connect programming is committed to an ongoing process to prioritize equity and inclusion across race, class, physical ability, place of birth, age, sexual orientation, cultural/spiritual tradition, gender, and learning styles. This includes partnership goals, co-creation of programs, outreach to new Walking Movement Leaders, event promotion strategies, training support, priority areas for advocacy-related events, and more. We learn and grow with each community we work with.

*Walking is inclusive to rolling or wheeling on a powered scooter or wheelchair. We also honor a variety of paces more reflective to 1-3 miles per hour.

Getting Started

If you would like to bring Walk2Connect to your community, please contact us about pricing and logistics. You can select from the programs described below, or work with us to create a unique program for your community. Walk2Connect has worked with community groups, government agencies, and nonprofits to use the unique benefits of walking and rolling events to create engagement, trust, and action in your community.

Programming

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Movement Leadership

Our Movement Leader program is the most comprehensive program of its type in the United States, providing the tools and skills you need to create walking and rolling events, or even start a movement-building organization in your own community! Movement Leaders become the heart, the backbone, and the feet-on-the-street working to grow our community. They are an amazing and diverse group of passionate leaders who touch the lives of many at a 1-3 mile-per-hour pace. Participants in the Movement Leader program will learn:

  • The importance of connection in today’s world
  • How to lead walking and rolling events that maximize connection
  • The technical details of creating a walking and rolling event
  • Pedestrian safety as a group
  • The first steps to becoming a walking and rolling Movement Leader
  • How to build on that foundation of trust to engage larger community goals

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Get Trained by an Expert

Our experience shows that Movement Leaders and community members benefit the most from hands-on training. Our Walk2Connect facilitators host launch-style events that serve the dual purpose of reigniting local walking/rolling groups, while also training future Movement Leaders by having them work alongside the local community.


Facilitated Walking and Rolling Events

Walk2Connect facilitators have a breadth of expertise under their belts and often are invited to lead themed walks in the community, congregation, team, or general area.


Program Benefits

  • Build community relationships and trust with community leaders, neighborhoods, and public agencies
  • Heighten empathy through shared experiences 
  • Develop community leadership
  • Inspire creative public health programming
  • Learn more about the mental, emotional, social, physical, and environmental benefits of walking and rolling 
  • Develop creative cross-cultural, cross-language programming through movement, creative interpretation, and storytelling
  • Start walking/rolling groups that create patterns of connection and activity in your neighborhood
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About Walk2Connect

Walk2Connect was founded by author and creator Jonathon Stalls in 2012, after completing a monumental trek across the United States. In less than 10 years, the organization grew to become a worker-owned enterprise with over 600 trained walking leaders across the United States hosting thousands of walking events each year and attracting thousands of followers around the globe. The program has proudly been a part of America Walks since 2022.

See some examples of the projects Walk2Connect can facilitate here.

Program Leadership

Ana Lucaci

Made2Walk

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Ana has used walking as a means of transportation and lifestyle for many years, particularly while growing up and working in Romania. After a pedestrian vs. car crash, she became a public health walking advocate, helping others experience walking as a means of staying healthy and speaking out to make walking and rolling accessible and safe for all. She specializes in pedestrian safety programs, urban design, motorist education, community engagement, and public health.

Jonathon Stalls

Jonathon Stalls

Intrinsic Paths & Pedestrian Dignity

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Jonathon Stalls (he, his) spent 242 days walking across the United States in 2010 and has continued to walk alongside thousands of people for thousands of miles. He describes himself as a Walking Artist. He advocates and organizes for racial, economic, and social justice, identifies as gay/queer, is currently the creator of Intrinsic Paths and the Pedestrian Dignity campaign, and is the founder of Walk2Connect. He has committed much of his life to helping people deepen their relationships to one another, to the natural world, and to themselves at an unhurried pace. He is the author of WALK – Slow Down, Wake Up & Connect at 1-3 Miles Per Hour with North Atlantic Books (released in August of 2022).

Training Experts
Maria Rosa

Maria Rosa Galter

Wild Wisdom Coaching 

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Maria Rosa is a certified Nature Connected Life Coach, Transformational Wilderness Guide, and Ceremony and Rites of Passage facilitator. Maria Rosa helps you see your sacred spirit-bond with all beings in Creation and guides you into discovering the wisdom the signs and symbols Creation offers as you discern your path forward. Like a midwife supporting the emergence of new birth, she helps you incorporate this wisdom into your new life story.

Sarah Schwallier

Sarah Schwallier

Strides Life Coaching

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Sarah is a full-time personal trainer and wellness coach, through Strides Life. She offers a well-balanced approach to lifestyle improvement. Through Personal Training sessions or a walk in nature together, Sarah is committed to helping you get on the healthiest path possible. This individualized approach to a lifestyle change is proven to work and to last through her countless testimonials and her own personal weight-loss success.

Naveed Heydari

Naveed Heydari

Pockets of Belonging 

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Naveed creates relational contexts in which regeneration is the norm. They identify in the spaces in between with regards to sexual identity, culture, spiritual orientation, and profession. He is an embodied practitioner in the fields of walking, yoga, and authentic relating, and somatic expression (song, sounds, movement).

 Long multi-week solo walks across Colorado, their hometown, are their favorite method to connect deeply to self, place, and the interbeing-ness of the world. Naveed is currently earning his Somatic Attachment Therapy certification through the Embody Lab.

Darcy Kitching

Darcy Kitching

Urban Planner & Boulder Ramblers

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Darcy Kitching works at the intersection of transportation planning, education, and community development with the goal of informing policy and programming that support active, healthy communities for people of all ages and abilities. She designs and leads weekly local walking events, conducts mixed-methods and community-engaged research projects, and writes and speaks about active transportation and child-friendly cities.

In 2020, her trail guide, “The Best Urban Hikes: Boulder,” was published by the Colorado Mountain Club Press, and she spoke about streets for activity and belonging at TEDxCherryCreek Countdown.

Nicole Huguenin

Nicole Huguenin

Share Circle

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Nicole is a conduit for caring and community. In 2015 she walked with a new person or group of people a day while simultaneously contributing to Walk2Connect and its community. She takes on projects and builds organizations that work towards a caring economy over an extractive one. Based in Maui, HI, her current projects include Share Circle and Maui Mutual Aide.

You can learn more and support her work as a generosity entrepreneur financially on Patreon or by sharing aloha on Exchange Ave .