Registration opens for Homer Steps Up challenge

Published 1:30 pm Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Registration for the 10th annual Homer Steps Up community walking challenge opens April 15 on HomerStepsUp.com. Coordinated by South Peninsula Hospital, with support from numerous partnering agencies, the yearly challenge, running May 4-31, is designed to motivate the community to engage in more movement to help improve overall health as well as provide a fun, interactive community event as Homer transitions into summer.

The program will be hosted on the same online platform and app as last year. Participants can sync their smartphone or wearable fitness tracker for easy tracking, or there are options to manually upload steps from a pedometer. Last year, 667 individuals across 68 teams participated, leading to 177,128,943 steps logged as a community.

Thanks to a grant from South Peninsula Hospital Foundation, all individual participants reaching a minimum of 7,500 daily steps will be entered to win weekly Homer Bucks. Teams of 5+ participants will be ranked based on the average of their members’ steps (not a total sum), and the top three winning teams will get the opportunity to designate cash donations to a local non-profit of their choice.

As part of the Homer Steps Up Challenge, SPH is extending sponsorship of free weekly indoor walks at the SPARC on Mondays from 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. through June. Starting April 20 and going through May, there will also be a Homer Steps Up registration and help desk available, as well as free blood pressure screenings.

There are also multiple community events happening throughout May that can help participants reach their steps goals: Kachemak Bay Running Club meets at Bishops Beach on Wednesdays, the Shorebird Festival’s Migration Run 5k on May 10, South Peninsula Behavioral Health Services walk-a-thon on May 28, and Kachemak Bay Family Planning Clinic’s satellite Alaska Run for Women event on May 30.