About 200 people participated in the first annual 'Lets Get Physical' event on Saturday, encouraging people to become more active, while raising money for a good cause.

Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center hosted the event, held at the James D. Beville City Park in Leitchfield. Proceeds from the 'Lets Get Physical' event went towards “Make A Difference Day.”

 The annual event is held the fourth Saturday of October, celebrating a national day of helping others.

The idea for 'Lets Get Physical', generated from a hospital staff member seeing something like this done in another city, and wanted to do the same thing here in Grayson County. Officials also thought it would be a good way to interact with others in the community.

Twin Lakes Chief Operating Officer Deneace Clemons said, "Apparently there was activity in the Ohio County or Owensboro office, and our Physical Therapist Chris Fuller was aware of it. He said it would be really neat if we got something like this going here." Clemons added, "So after hearing Chris talk about that it aroused our interest, and we thought it would be a good idea. The other thing was there was a SIDS (softball) tournament not too long ago and we had enough people in it for two or three teams. These people got to interact with people they did not get to on a normal basis."

She explained that Grayson County ranks very low when it comes to activity levels, as well as Kentucky on national numbers for activity levels.  "We have a city team (competing in the softball tournament), OFS (Styline Industries in Leitchfield), and several others," said Clemons. "It is a neat way for people to interact, it is a great stress reliever. If you count players and volunteers, we have probably got 50 employees out here." A 1.1 mile run kicked off the activities on September 13 with several cross-country teams from area schools participating. Other items that took place during the day: • 2.2 mile fun walk • sharp shooter basketball tournament • softball tournament, which eight teams participated in • bounce house for the kids to play in • cornhole tournament for older kids and younger kids Clemons said she wanted to thank Robin Embry and Stacey Higgs for their dedicated support in pulling this event off. Twin Lakes Director of Planning and Marketing Bill Oldham added he was very pleased with the success of this year's event, and is looking forward to next year.