Camano Plaza IGA Runs For Local Cause & Wellness

Camano Plaza IGA recently made a splash at the Camano Crab Dash, a local 5K run/walk that raises funds for the Camano Center, which offers valuable programs and social services to seniors. Known for their community involvement, the store, based in Camano, Washington, has worked closely with the Camano Center for years. But this year's participation marked the start of a transformative journey towards employee wellness.

The Myers Group, which is the parent company of Camano Plaza IGA, launched a wellness program in February that pushes health-focused initiatives to promote more active lifestyles for employees, and the Camano Crab Dash perfectly embodied the initiative: the store served as a sponsor, providing healthy snacks and water for the event, and employees assembled a team to participate in the 5K.

The team, aptly named Team Crabby Grocers, embraced the event as part of their new wellness program initiative while supporting the community they love.

“It’s great to see a fun, healthy, and encouraging community event that brings people together for a great cause,” Camano Plaza IGA General Manager Scot Huntington said. “Plus, it brings in others from around the region to support our community,” 

Jessica Landau, manager and event coordinator said they had 12 people on Team Crabby Grocers, with nearly each store department represented. 

“I made sign-up sheets to put in the break room explaining the event and our plan of action. After that, it was mostly word of mouth, going around each department and encouraging as many people to sign up as we could,” Landau said.

When race day arrived, the team still had a store to run — it was a busy summer Saturday, after all — but almost everyone who wanted to be a part of the event was able to make it work with their schedules and managers were flexible and accommodating.

“This was the perfect opportunity to put the health and wellness initiative into action and for managers to show that they, too, see the importance,” Landau said. “Also, if they signed up before a specific date prior to the event, participants were promised fun matching team shirts provided by Camano Plaza. I think it made a big difference making it a fun team experience rather than an individual race.”

Employees got to show their team spirit with some custom shirts. 

The local residents vocalized their appreciation online and in person for the grocer’s participation. Camano Plaza IGA plans on sponsoring and having an even larger team next year.

“We have had quite a few notice our team's participation in the event and bring it up at the store,” Huntington said. “We also had a substantial amount of social media interactions and visibility as we were able to help promote the event and share our team's experience in the event online.”

The Start of Something Bigger

As evidenced by the Camano Crab Dash participation, Myers Group's wellness program initiative has been a success so far, fostering a culture of health and vitality across its six grocery stores, three service stations, seven ACE Hardwares, and two restaurants. 

“We have launched a very robust wellness website that has quite a lot of information around nutrition, fitness, mental health,” Myers Group Director of Wellness Katy Nishida said.

The program covers other aspects of wellness, like financial planning, low-cost legal resources, and relationship and career education. Employees have free access to Fitbod, a personal trainer fitness app. The initiative also includes a tobacco cessation program, incentivizing it with $200 in gift cards if employees participate in the program and are successful.

This methodology touches every aspect of somebody's life. “Because we define wellness in a really holistic way,” Nishida said.

“I’m really excited to see that in the first few months, we're already starting to see the stores create more health and wellness initiatives," she added. "And I think that through the rest of the year, we expect to see more of that, as the store managers are sharing ideas with each other.”

There will also be company-wide wellness challenges to create a team atmosphere within each store and entice friendly competition. Nishida foresees this happening once every quarter, lasting 6-8 weeks long.

Camano Plaza IGA's participation in the Camano Crab Dash serves as an example of the store team's eager participation in the wellness program initiative, and the promise it inspires for the future.