Keen is creating a Recess Center at its headquarters in Portland, OR to encourage play during the day which includes a recess tracker to show time in minutes, hours, days and months spent at recess, a detailed map of nearby recess spots, a place to let employees share their tips for taking recess and favorite recess activities, and recess items such as Frisbees, yoga mats, and bikes.
There will be a Recess Team to rally other employees to play, and managers will be equipped with whistles and recess passes to encourage employees to get outside.
This spring, Keen and its Recess Team are also approaching other companies to “bring recess back.” Come summer, Keen will introduce the 'Recess Revolution' to cities around the U.S., including the San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis, Denver, and Washington D.C., through a series of events and promotions. The summer's recess activities include taking over sidewalks in Denver for a chalk art exhibitions and installing adult-friendly tire swings throughout Minneapolis.
To help individuals get outside and enjoy recess, Keen offers an online toolkit complete with recess passes, screen savers and downloadable door hangers promoting recess breaks. In partnership with Parents magazine, the brand is releasing a smart phone app that locates the closest park. In addition, Keen will use social media channels to host photo contests and promotions to allow people to share recess adventures, as well as offering the chance to win the ultimate recess give-a-way outfitting a family with recess ready shoes, bags and socks for every season.
“We are an eight-year-old company that wants everyone to experience the freedom they felt as an eight-year-old at recess,” said Phyllis Grove, VP of marketing for Keen. “We want to enable people to bring more healthy habits, work-life balance and outdoor fun into their lives through this movement to reinstate recess. We invite you to put on your Keens, get outside and reclaim play. Recess is back!”
Keen noted that recent studies in the work place conducted by Toni Yancey, author of Instant Recess and co-director of the Center for Health Equity and professor of health services at UCLA and her colleagues show that taking short activity breaks during the workday, the time Keen refers to as recess, is great for an individual's health and well-being.
According to a recent review, daily physical activity accumulated in short intervals may be more feasible and appealing to the relatively sedentary population than longer periods of activity. Integrating short durations of exercise into the workday produces improvements in outcomes related to work performance and clinical disease outcomes.
“We want to liberate the masses from indoors and make recess as common as casual Friday,” said James Curleigh, CEO and chief recess officer of Keen. “In the time when screens are off and phones are silenced, people are happier. If we start small, with just 15 minutes a day, the world may become a better place one recess at a time.”
The benefits of physical activity are numerous and well-documented (http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/health/index.html). National organizations such as the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition; the National Recreation and Park Association; and the Partnership for a Healthier America are active partners in the campaign for physical activity to help improve health.
