(file photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Ben Tompkins

Participaction Community Challenge

City of Melfort hoping to become ‘Canada’s most active community’

Jun 7, 2023 | 8:47 AM

ParticipACTION’s nationwide community challenge is underway and will be so until the end of the month.

For the City of Melfort, this is the second time they will try and become “Canada’s most active community.”

“We just want to make sure that people understand the importance of getting active, we want to see as many people out and about in our community, as active as possible and know that everything counts,” said recreation and aquatics manager, Shannon Marshall.

“We know that Melfort is already super active, we just need people to log those minutes and prove it. It’s gonna be great and we’re really excited.”

To participate, residents just need to download the free ParticipACTION app and join the community challenge.

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All you need to do is some form of activity and track how many minutes you did the activity, with a maximum of 300 minutes per day.

While the challenge will end on June 30, Marshall wants good habits to begin and the activities to continue.

“Being active is just a really good thing for our community, being active builds stronger, healthier, and more vibrant communities all around. It’s great for not only our physical health, but it’s also great for our mental health, so that’s why we really try to encourage it.”

Lots of prizes are up for grabs, including individual, team, and community.

The most important in Marshall’s eyes is the community award, as ‘”Canada’s most active community” will receive $100,000 and one community from each of the remaining 12 provinces and territories will receive $7,500 to $15,000 to support local physical activity and sports initiatives.

“We recognize that there are so many ways to get and be active in our community, and we also recognize that there are so many people that are already active in our community. We see lots of activity happening in our community, so we are going to strive really hard for it.”

PartcipACTION has a formula that they will use so communities of different sizes all have an equally fair chance to win. This will include dividing the population size by the total minutes logged.

The city will also be providing different types of activities and events to promote people to try new things and get active.

These will include pickleball days, line dancing in the park, a Nordic walking class, disc golf, yoga in the park, and sports fundamentals for kids.

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