Mountain Challenge is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The celebration officially gets underway Sept. 23 at 1 p.m. with the “Outdoor Adventure: A Celebration of Human-Powered Activity” on the grounds of Maryville College’s Crawford House.

Founder and director Bruce Guillaume and his Mountain Challenge staff want everyone to get out and get fit.

“This anniversary is a good time for us to look forward,” Guillaume said. “And the two biggest challenges we see in our communities are getting people to be more active and getting more people outside. It only helps for people to be fit,” he said. “It only helps for people to be outdoors, so a lot of the programming that will be tied to this anniversary celebration will be planned with those goals in mind,”

The Mountain Challenge anniversary will also lift up the environment, he added.

“It’s connected to the goal of ‘getting more people outside.’ ” Guillaume explained. “Once you’re outdoors and you have a connection to nature, I think you feel a duty to protect it. Unfortunately,” Guillaume added, “being green and being environmentally aware today is more of an academic exercise than a personal experience.”

According to its mission statement, Mountain Challenge strives to provide high-quality, safe outdoor experiences designed to change the world for the better, one person at a time.

“Mountain Challenge is possibly the oldest program in the South,” Guillaume said. The Maryville College campus has been home to the celebration throughout its operation. Mountain Challenge will include outdoor activities, vendor tables and screenings of the documentaries “Happy” and “Play Again.”  For more information, call 865-981-8125, or visitwww.maryvillecollege.edu/students/mtn-challenge.