September 03, 2026
Courtenay Harris Bond/PhillyVoice
A group that meets several times a week in Hunting Park as part of the WE WALK PHL program has created lasting friendships and spurred park improvements.
Growing up, Brenda Smith's mother used to tell her she had a "car-seat behind."
"I hated walking. I hated walking," said Smith, 69.
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But a decade ago, at 278 pounds, Smith decided she needed to lose weight.
"So I stopped eating junk. I stopped drinking sodas, and my coffee, I started drinking it black," she said. "And all that, and I couldn't lose a pound."
Smith said she went to the doctor, "crying and fussing," and he told her she wasn't eating enough protein and that she needed to start walking. On Facebook, Smith found WE WALK PHL, a free walking program coordinated by Philadelphia's public health and parks and recreation departments, along with the Fairmount Park Conservancy.
More than 50 leaders head up walking groups in 25 city parks on a weekly basis in the fall and spring, with some groups meeting year-round. Smith joined the Hunting Park group.
"I was walking with a cane," Smith said at Tuesday morning's meetup. "They made me feel welcome. I wasn't intimidated."
As part of the group that goes at the slowest pace, no one told her, "You have to hurry up," Smith said. "And I said, 'Oh, I think I can do this! And that was 10 years ago."
Walking three mornings a week with the Hunting Park group, Smith is now one of the program's leaders —and has dropped 100 pounds.
Walkers meet three times a week at Hunting Park, one of the first three parks where the city's WE WALK program started.
Smith is a prime example of the benefits of the WE WALK program, which started 10 years ago with a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to promote physical activity among adults.
"We were really thinking about what are the most sustainable and accessible forms of being active, and walking and rolling — using assisted mobility devices, as well as two feet — really rose to the top," said Mica Root, the nutrition and physical activity program manager for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
Despite ongoing debate about how many steps a day is optimal, the fundamental physical and mental health benefits of walking are well known and well documented. Walking on a regular basis helps with weight management, strengthens bones and muscles, boosts mood, eases anxiety and reduces risk of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions.
A 2022 meta-analysis of 15 studies involving nearly 200,000 people showed that 75 minutes of brisk walking a week reduced risk of depression by 18%; that 2 1/2 hours of brisk walking a week cut depression risk by 25%; and that as many as 1 in 9 cases of depression could be eliminated with just 150 minutes of physical activity a week, the amount recommended by the CDC.
Nicole Seahorne Hameen, the education and social engagement specialist with the Fairmount Park Conservancy, can attest to these benefits. She has shed 40 pounds during her 10 years heading the WE WALK program. And walking with different groups helps her defeat her own "self-defeating thoughts" and loneliness, she said.
"I've met people I can confide in," Seahorne Hameen said. "Team members are more than just team members."
Sugar Roane is a longtime WE WALK leader. She has shed more than 100 pounds during her 10 years leading walks with the program.
Sugar Roane, 67, a WE WALK leader for Vernon Park in Germantown and the group that meets at the Mander playground in East Fairmount Park, was 262 pounds when she started with the program 10 years ago.
"I received an email asking me, did I want to be a walk leader, and I laughed because I didn't know the person," Roane said. "I said, 'They must know how fat I am.'
"I went, and I said, 'Look at me. You think I can walk?' And she (a program leader) said, 'I know you can.'"
Roane now weighs 156 pounds and is down from four inhalers and three blood pressure medications to just one of each.
"Every time I went back to the doctor he said, 'What are you doing?' He even told his patients about WE WALK," Roane said.
But most of all, Roane said, "We're a friendship group."
"Us showing up together is important, being active together as a community, representing what community looks like," Seahorne Hameen said.
The Hunting Park WE WALK group takes a break Tuesday at one of their favorite trees.
The Hunting Park Group, one of the first three to start, is also an example of how WE WALK fosters people's relationships with their parks, Root said.
"After a couple of years of the program, the walkers in Hunting Park were really letting us know that the sidewalk conditions were not conducive to many of their members' safety," Root said.
Through a combination of city funds and grants, sidewalk and lighting improvements are underway at Hunting Park – a group that Seahorne Hameen calls the "blueprint for the program."
The consistent presence of the Hunting Park WE WALK group – always with two trained volunteer leaders, as every group has – has brought a "positive energy" to the neighborhood, Seahorne Hameen said.
A woman walking by herself in Hunting Park on Tuesday stopped WE WALK members to ask how to sign up. After the group's warm-down routine, another resident, who said she had watched WE WALKers in the park for years but hadn't had time to join until now, realized that she went to junior high and high school with Roane.
"It's like a family now," said Margie Witts, one of the Hunting Park group leaders.
She joined the group to help with her physical recovery after being hit by a car. The Hunting Park WE WALK team has also helped her with her grief over losing a son, Witts said.
"As you talk to people, you learn that they're going through the same thing you're going through, so that helps you out a lot."
