Some people really put their money where their mouth is, and others put their bodies there as well. Bob Barnes, who is VP and head of special assets for DeLand, Florida bank, decided to to 20,000 push-ups last month to raise money for the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia. This center provides food and shelter for people in need. He called it “Big Bad Bob’s Push-up Challenge” and he helped to raise $7300 for the community center.
He had more than 100 contributors and he did 645 pushups a day, every day, for a month.
Of course, he didn’t tell his doctor what his plans were when he was diagnosed with pneumonia on the first day of his challenge. As he said, “I didn’t tell my doctor what I was planning, because she would have said no. So I started, and I just knocked it in the dirt.”
Barnes kept a log as he did the pushups and he updated his supporters on his progress. He did not accept any cheating from himself, as he said, “no cheating — all the way down and all the way to the top.”
58 and clearly in amazing shape, Barnes is not planning a repeat of this next year. He hopes next year to reminisce about his accomplishment from this year. And he explains that he really ended up doing a bit more than 20,000. As he said,
“I did a little more because I wanted to make sure my math was right. Being a banker, my calculations don’t always add up.”
