Is it Possible to Count What We Can Do for Health? It's a simple idea, but we hope it will grow into something significant enough to help transform the health of an entire county. In St. Clair County, Illinois, that means counting the collective efforts of nearly 262,000 citizens! We know this is an an ambitious goal. We're not sure if something this big has ever been tried before. Nonetheless, it's part of the Year 2020 Vision of the Get Up & Go! Campaign, and we are asking for your help to see it through over the next several years. We call this idea the Pointing the Way to Health Challenge because we want to work together to do two things: First, we want to see how many individuals and groups are out there practicing (or willing to practice) activities that promote active living and healthy eating. If you are one of them would you help point the way for others by making and tracking a health goal through our website? Second (and this is the fun part), we want to see if we can capture all these combined efforts and share them in such a way as to make them count for something. To start out, the Get Up & Go! Campaign is going to count just four things - Time, Distance, Servings and Pounds. Simply put, our volunteers started asking "What if…" - What if we could count the amount of time spent in fitness activities being promoted through the many extracurricular programs undertaken by our local schools, volunteer groups and churches?
- What if we could span the total distance being logged by the many clubs, organizations and schools in our communities as they encourage more walking, running, biking, swimming, etc?
- What if we could count the total number of servings of healthy fruits and vegetables for people who have set a goal to live healthier by trying to practice the recommended guidelines of eating 4-5 servings each day?
- What if we could combine the total number of pounds lost through all those office "Biggest Losers" contests or weight reduction programs? Like the 1998 Iowa town that lost a ton.
If we can succeed at counting our efforts in just these four areas, imagine how many more ways we can find to work together to transform the health of St. Clair County and its many diverse communities over the next nine years? Please consider joining the journey and sharing your progress along the way. Before you get started, there are just few things we want you and your team to know about setting and keeping healthy goals and using our online system. To see or downlaod our Pointing the Way to Health - Users Guide, simply click the file. Thank you, in advance, for being such an important partner in this effort. |
