Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

Virgin HealthMiles part of Richard Branson’s Virgin group is donating $6.3 million in donations to raise awareness of childhood obesity by partnering with Texan Governer Rick Perry:

For two weeks beginning January 1, 2009, Governor Perry and Texas executive agency leaders will compete with other governors and their respective state leadership in the Capitol Steps Challenge. Teams will compete head-to-head by tracking their daily activity, with a goal of achieving the highest average steps per person.

At the end of the Challenge, Virgin HealthMiles will declare the state team with the highest average steps per person as the Most Active Governor’s Team in the nation and will make a $50,000 donation to that state’s childhood obesity program. If the winning state chooses to participate in the second phase of Virgin HealthMiles’ obesity initiative, they can earn double all donations, increasing the total potential donation to $250,000.

 

The second phase of Virgin HealthMiles’ obesity initiative will be individual State Leadership Challenges, where teams of 250 individuals from state government offices across the U.S. embark on a year-long program to increase their physical activity — again leading by example to their constituents about the relationship between increased activity levels and improved wellness. Based on activity levels, states can earn donations of up to $125,000 toward their childhood obesity programs. More details on the State Leadership Challenge will be announced in early 2009.

More here.

UPDATE: It’s started.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 4:09 pm and is filed under usa, funding, getting active, childhood obesity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.