UC walks the talk on health and wellness. And when we say “walks,” we mean walks, as in the second annual UC Walks, a systemwide event for employees and retirees from the Davis and Sacramento campuses in the north, to San Diego in the south.

UC Walks is a one-day event, Wednesday, May 18 — with free T-shirts! — but the university’s Living Well program and two of our health care providers, StayWell and Kaiser Permanente, hope to see more people add walking for exercise to their routine.

Of course, many folks at UC Davis do a good bit of walking already, on their own or with Aggies on the Move. They are all invited to participate in UC Walks, of course, as are people for whom walking for exercise is not part of their regular routine.

The goal of UC Walks is to help you get started, or to keep going if you are already a walker. Here is what is happening that day on the Davis and Sacramento campuses:

Davis — The wellness unit (part of Human Resources) has organized a number of group walks around midday. Here are the meeting places:

• Quad (next to the East Quad Farmers Market)
• Mrak Hall (north side)
• Health Sciences District (in front of Scrubs cafe, in Medical Sciences 1B, north of Valley Hall)
• UC Davis Extension-Accounting and Financial Services (the courtyard between the two buildings on Research Park Drive)

The organizers said volunteers will lead 30-minute walks starting at noon and 12:30 p.m.

All locations will be open at 11:45 a.m. to start handing out UC Walks T-shirts, lip balm and sunscreen (courtesy of StayWell and Kaiser), while supplies last, to people with UC identification.

Sacramento campus — T-shirts will be given away to the first 300 employees who come to Cancer Survivors Park, Stockton Boulevard and Second Avenue, from noon to 2 p.m. The organizers said representatives from the UC Davis Health System's Academic and Staff Assistance Program will be available to answer questions about UC wellness programs and provide walking maps of the Sacramento campus.