This time of year, as we think of giving, gratitude, and the end of the Centennial, we’ve come up with a new idea to celebrate and help raise extra funds for the park: The Acadia Centennial Trek Challenge.

The idea came to us after we got a Friends of Acadia Annual Fund mailing this weekend. We were so pleased to see our free year-long, 100-mile, virtual Acadia Centennial Trek included in a listing of Centennial events, that we decided to come up with the Centennial Trek Challenge.

Are you up to the Challenge?

There are 2 ways to help raise extra funds for the park between now and Dec. 31:

Buy an Acadia Centennial Trek Medal; or run, hike or walk 100 miles for Acadia anywhere in the world, log your miles on a virtual map, and watch your avatar move along the route that starts on the top of Cadillac, and snakes its way over the 26 peaks of Acadia.

Shop or log miles to meet the Acadia Centennial Trek Challenge

For all Acadia Centennial Trek Medals purchased between now and the end of the year, we’ll double our donation to help the park, 10% of gross proceeds rather than 5%. The medal features the Centennial logo, and is made by Ashworth Awards, the same company that makes the Boston Marathon and Mount Desert Island Marathon finisher’s medals.

The medals aren’t just a great way to mark completion of the 100-mile Acadia Centennial Trek. They’re also a memorable way to reward any accomplishment, whether it’s a good report card, becoming more physically fit, or some other worthy goal. And they make a wonderful holiday gift for the Acadia lovers on your shopping list.

And for every mile logged by participants in the Trek between now and the end of the year, we’ll donate at least 2 cents a mile to help support Acadia. Collectively, the nearly 300 participants in the Trek have logged 21,724.9 miles since Feb. 29.

Run, walk or hike and make your miles count toward a pretty penny for the park!

The difference between the total miles logged at the end of the day on Dec. 31 and the 21,724.9 miles as of this morning will be the basis for the per-mile donation. If you join now but can’t complete the 100 miles in the remaining 49 days of the year as of Nov. 13, your mileage will still count.

And if you’ve already completed the Trek, you can still log your miles even if your map avatar doesn’t move any longer, and have them count toward the total as well. (If you’re onto Parts II and III of the Trek, we’ll be keeping track of the mileage being added to the cumulative totals there too.)

Is Acadia on My Mind up to the personal Centennial Trek Challenge?

Now that we’ve laid out details of the Acadia Centennial Trek Challenge that anyone can participate in, here’s our personal version of the Challenge that we’re announcing to you:

As AOMM (short for Acadia on My Mind, and as represented by the Bubble Rock avatar on the Racery,com maps), we’ve completed the Acadia Centennial Trek, Parts I, II and III, or 300 miles cumulatively. And as AOMM2, we’ve completed all 100 miles of Part I, and 48.3 miles of Part II.

We hereby announce that we aim to complete the remaining 51.7 miles of Part II, and the 100 miles of Part III, in the 49 days before the end of the year.

That’s just over 3 miles a day on average. Can Acadia on My Mind do it?

If AOMM2 meets the goal, the extra miles she logs between now and the end of the year will be part of the 2-cents-per-mile Challenge. If she falls short, she’s got to personally donate another $1 per mile for each mile she’s shy of the goal, to help support the park. Either way, the park and the Friends of Acadia are the beneficiaries.

What’s your personal Acadia Centennial Trek Challenge? Let us know!