Community Better Challenge
It’s #timetomove. Now, more than ever, physical activity is needed to help us stay healthy in mind, body, and community spirit. Research shows the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the health of Canadians of all ages, with many moving less and spending more time being sedentary. The Community Better Challenge provides an easy, fun and safe way to get communities moving and socially connecting (either in-person or virtually) through physical activity and sport.
The Sun Life Centre for Physically Active Communities (CPAC) knows that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges and many of us have had to adjust to cancelled or virtual programming. That’s why we are teaming up with the City of Waterloo to host programs, activities, and promote Community Resources that will help encourage everyone to get active in a way that is enjoyable for them. It’s important to find ways to connect with our friends, family and community and the Community Better Challenge can help us do so, safely!
To help motivate the community to get active and to introduce new physical activity options available in the community, we have created the #TimeToMoveList. We want to know how many of the activities you can complete throughout the month of June! Click the "What Activities Can I Participate in?" dropdown below for more information!
What is the Community Better Challenge?
ParticipACTION’s Community Better Challenge is a national physical activity initiative that encourages Canadians to get active in search of Canada’s Most Active Community. From June 1 – 30, 2021 we want Waterlooians to get active and track their physical activity minutes in an effort for our community to be recognized as one that champions active living and win the $100,000 grand prize to support local physical activity initiatives.
Additional prizes will be awarded to winning communities in each province and territory. In 2019, over 265 million minutes of physical activity were tracked by individuals on the ParticipACTION app and by 1400 organizations that hosted programs and events in every province and territory. At the end of the challenge, Enderby, BC was crowned Canada’s Most Active Community!
Any activities that you log, either automatically if you have a wearable device (ex. Apple Watch or Fitbit), or manually (by clicking on the stepping icon on the bottom right hand corner of the main page in the ParticipACTION app) will go towards Waterloo’s physical activity totals in the Community Better Challenge. All you need to do is log each activity you participate in throughout the month!
Why should I participate?
With this challenge, we hope to inspire and motivate schools, universities, organizations, businesses, friends, families, and individuals to put their screens away and enjoy the nicer temperatures by putting their health first. It’s time to try new activities. It’s time to re-connect with others (in a safe manner). It’s time to work together as the city of Waterloo to achieve a goal of being names Canada’s Most Active Community. It’s #timetomove.
The challenge is open to anyone and everyone. Ultimately our goal is to inspire the community to change their sedentary behaviours and provide new initiatives to help make that happen. Ultimately, at the end of June, ParticipACTION will recognize the community with the most tracked minutes (based on its population size) as Canada’s Most Active Community and awarding it with $100,000 to support local physical activity initiatives. Help us earn the big prize by downloading the ParticipACTION app and track each of your activities to add to Waterloo’s activity totals. Every move counts!
Steps to Sign up:
- Download the ParticipACTION app or navigate to www.participaction.com
- If you already have a ParticipACTION account, click the Log In button and enter your username and password. Any activities you log throughout the month will automatically go towards the Community Better Challenge. If you do not have an account, click on the Register button, and sign in with your Google account, or register with your email address.
- If you register as a new user, a page will appear that says, “Let’s customize the experience for you.” Click on the Get Started button.
- Complete the registration process by entering your first name, activity level, gender, age, and postal code.
- *IMPORTANT NOTE* In order for your activities to count toward Waterloo’s activity totals and help us with our goal of being Canada’s Most Active Community, you MUST enter a Waterloo postal code during the registration process.
What activities can I participate in?
Any physical activities you participate in during the month that you log in the ParticipACTION app will count. Track your in-person or virtual exercise classes, practices, events or even lunchtime walks starting June 1. Every minute tracked goes toward Waterloo’s score.
In order to help motivate the community to get active after over a year of increasingly sedentary behaviour, we wanted to make participating in the Community Better Challenge a fun experience and give opportunities for participants to try new activities. Together with the City of Waterloo we will be organizing a month-long initiative as well as weekly challenges that will allow individuals or households engage in physical activities in a COVID-19 safe way.
We will be running a number of fun initiatives that we hope will indroduce the community to recreational ammenities they may not have known were in their neighbourhood and also motivate the community to participate in activities they may never have tried before. We have created the #TimeToMove List which has been designed to encourage Waterlooians to sit less and move more as well as have a chance to win prizes! We want the community to look at the list and highlight the activities they love and pinpoint the new ones they would like to try. Challenge friends, neighbours, or family to see who can complete the most activities from the list throughout the month. Each activity on the list is able to be adapted, ensuring that anyone can participate regardless of age, ability, or level of experience. The #TimeToMove List is attached to this article for download.
In addition to the month long #TimeToMove List, we will be organizing weeklong challenges throughout the month. Each week’s challenge will be announced on our social media pages (@SunLifeCentre) with participants who interact with us having a chance to win some great prizes!
Who is Sun Life Centre for Physically Active Communities?
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If you have any questions or need any assistance regarding the Community Better Challenge, please contact Nicole at nvandermade@wlu.ca.
As we mentioned previously, in addition to the Time to Move List, we will be posting a fun new challenge each week on our social media pages! Follow us across all social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) @SunLifeCentre for more information, updates, and details about the challenges and how to win some amazing prizes!