{"id":23697,"date":"2019-05-02T12:10:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T16:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23697"},"modified":"2019-05-16T17:27:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T21:27:26","slug":"get-off-the-couch-and-on-your-feet-for-the-community-better-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/get-off-the-couch-and-on-your-feet-for-the-community-better-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Get off the couch and on your feet for the Community Better Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time to get off your couch and onto your feet to\nhelp Aurora clinch the title of Canada\u2019s most active community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora launched its bid to nab top spot in\nParticipACTION\u2019s Community Better Challenge on Monday afternoon at the Aurora\nFamily Leisure Complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spearheaded locally by Activate Aurora, the Community\nBetter Challenge is a new physical activity challenge aimed at rallying\ncommunities from coast to coast to sit less and move more — together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are calling on all Canadians to get active and\nincorporate physical activity where they live, work and play,\u201d says\nParticipACTION. \u201cIt\u2019s time to put down the phones and tablets for a few minutes\nand reconnect with neighbours and fellow community members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Challenge tasks individuals or organizations to track\ntheir physical activity minutes between May 31 and June 16 through an app.\nThese minutes are tallied by community and the participating community that\nracks up the most minutes could be recognized with top honours — and $150,000\nfor their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo and a half years ago, we started on this quest to\ncreate an active community in Aurora and we set out a challenge for other\ncommunities to do the same,\u201d says Ron Weese of Activate Aurora.\n\u201cParticipACTION, fortunately, has picked up that challenge and spread it across\nthe nation. We feel we\u2019re in a pretty good position to join this challenge and\nwe believe it is a great opportunity for the community to come together, for\nall the community spirit reasons there are regarding healthy physical activity,\nand if a well-respected national agency like ParticipACTION identifies us as\nCanada\u2019s most active community, I think that has a certain value to (Aurora) as\na business in this community and the community at large.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a view shared at Monday\u2019s launch, which was\nattended by representatives of a number of community partners, including the\nTown, the Aurora Seniors Association, York Region Public Health, the Aurora\nChamber of Commerce and the York Catholic District School Board, in addition to\nbusinesses like Goodlife and 9 Round Fitness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are excited to be part of this initiative\u2026to share\nwith our students the importance of being physically active and developing\nthese healthy habits at a young age, and to build those physical literacy\nskills, knowing that it is not just their body, but their mind, their heart,\nand the emotional and, with our Board, spiritual health as well,\u201d said Karen\nAugust, a teacher at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School and the Board\u2019s lead\non physical education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re active, everything is better. [Our students]\nlove being active and they love showing that they are out there with their\nfamilies enjoying the benefits that come with being active. I think that as\nlong as we, as teachers and parents, are active with them, they will see us as\nrole models and will want to continue to be active.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the Community Better Challenge, the opportunities\nto become more physically active are almost limitless. Just about anything that\ngets you up on your feet and active can be counted on the ParticipACTION app.\nWhile individuals and businesses can log their minutes, so can groups,\nincluding co-workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFitness centres, dance studios, the Municipal Recreation\nDepartment have all expressed interest in providing physical activity counts\nfrom the day to day work they do,\u201d adds Mr. Weese. \u201cOur Activate Aurora schools\nin particular have all agreed to monitor their children for physical education\nclasses, and they have also implemented special events during the week such as\ndaily physical activity walks in order to stimulate more activity in their\nchildren. We\u2019re also encouraging parents to have a conversation with their kids\nat the end of the day to identify activities they have done and to include\nthose in their counts as well. It\u2019s as much an exercise in counting what is\nbeing done because we know we\u2019re an active community than it is trying to start\nsomething new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe tangible benefit is there is prize money and the\nprize money is $150,000 for the winner across Canada. We certainly would be\nhappy to receive that, but there are also Regional ones where we would be\npitted against other communities in Ontario for $20,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions with stakeholders are ongoing on how any\nprize money could best be used, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe notion here is that we would like to continue\nActivate Aurora and continue with it being Active Aurora by putting the money\nback into programs and grants that stimulate further physical activity with\nengaging more of our schools and providing additional opportunities; for\ninstance, for girls and women who seem to be under-serviced [in sport], for\ncultural diversity and accessibility to sport. We\u2019re looking at a variety of\nways to use that money, should we be so lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for 60,000 residents to count\nthemselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on ParticipACTION\u2019s Community Better\nChallenge and to download the app, visit www.participACTION.com<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir It is time to get off your couch and onto your feet to help Aurora clinch the title of Canada\u2019s most active community. Aurora launched its bid to nab top spot in ParticipACTION\u2019s Community Better Challenge on Monday afternoon at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex. Spearheaded locally by Activate Aurora, the Community […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-02-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6ad","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 07:02:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}