Welcome to 99 Walks! I am Joyce, co-founder, CEO, and “Pack Leader.” As a woman, mother, daughter of a coach, and self-confessed idea junkie, I am wildly dedicated to empowering women through community, connection and walking. We are a young company on a mighty mission to get a million women walking.

When Eric (my co-founder and husband) and I created 99 Walks, we envisioned a community that was inclusive of all members and celebrated their beautiful diversity of body sizes, fitness levels, abilities, ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, religious beliefs, and political leanings. Our goal is to help EVERYONE get healthy, happy, and chase their dreams TOGETHER.

Along with an incredible team, Eric and I are creating that very community and championing the change we want to see. Every day, we hear from members of the 99 Walks Pack about the ways this community, this app and this message is impacting their lives.

Here at 99 Walks, we seek nothing less than to change the world by forging connections among millions of women and harnessing those connections to encourage health, wellness and happiness.

We welcome anyone who is committed to walking their way to a better world and helping to support one another along the way. We recognize that we will never fully understand what it feels like to walk in one another's shoes, but we promise to listen with an open heart and genuine desire to understand.

We abhor racism in all of its forms but recognize that we live in a culture in which racism is deeply embedded. We hate diet culture but encourage healthy eating. We believe that there is no place for body shaming, but know that these issues are deeply ingrained in many of us. We have built a community predicated upon the power of walking, but seek ways to serve those who can’t.

We have a lot of Core Values. 99 of them to be exact and I invite you to check them out HERE. Two of those Core Values go right to the heart of our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Core Value 33: Play the Long Game. Unfortunately, dismantling a legacy of discrimination in all of its forms will take time. It will not be fixed by a single brilliant blog post or one heartfelt Instagram story. True equality will be forged by ongoing recognition, connection, community, conversation and action. We are committed to this work for the long haul.

However, that long game must be balanced with Core Value 84: Be Impatient in your Pursuit of Excellence. We believe that a society that is just, fair, inclusive and safe for all is the true measure of excellence and we remain impatient in our quest to get there. 

That is the ideal towards which we work every day. We don’t always get it right. That’s okay, we are a team that prides itself on our growth mindset, our willingness to try, make mistakes, learn, grow and try again. And that means we are always asking … How are we doing? What can we do better? 

These are not rhetorical questions for us. We really want to know. 

How are we doing? What can we do better? Let us know at team@99walks.fit

Onward.