River Ridge Middle School (Bloomington, Wis.), as winners of the 'Play 60 Challenge,' a physical fitness program from the Green Bay Packers, American Heart Association, Bellin Health and WPS Health Insurance will receive an all expense paid trip to Lambeau Field and $700 in gift certificates to purchase new gym equipment.
More than 2,000 middle school students at 11 Wisconsin schools logged 6.85 million minutes during the challenge which took place in February and March.
River Ridge led the way with an average of 5,206.44 minutes per student, which worked out to 186 minutes per day. The rest of the top four schools were Iowa-Grant Schools, Livingston (4550.75 minutes per student/162 minutes a day); West De Pere Middle School, De Pere (4463.16/159); and Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Milwaukee (4166.72/149).
Each of the four schools received gift certificates to be spent on physical education equipment, with the winner, River Ridge, receiving the all-expenses paid trip to Lambeau Field.
Overall, the students averaged 125 minutes per day, more than double the goal of the NFL's Play 60 program, a youth health and fitness campaign focused on making the next generation of kids the most active and healthy.
The six-week program challenged the students to get active and play for at least 60 minutes each day, with the activities able to be broken up and performed either in or out of school. The students tracked their daily totals on classroom scoreboards. Some schools had a competition between participating grades and the winning classes received prizes. Other schools had teachers join the challenge and compete against the students.
The other Wisconsin schools that participated were Brillion Middle School, Brillion; Darrell Lynn Hines Schools, Milwaukee; Frank Allis & Nuestro Mundo Schools, Madison; Oak Creek Middle School, Oak Creek; St. John the Baptist Catholic School, Plymouth; St. Paul Lutheran School, Bonduel; and TJ Walker Middle School, Sturgeon Bay.
Participating schools received teacher guides and student planners, as well as a Play 60 Challenge T-Shirt.
More information on the 'Play 60 Challenge' can be found online at http://www.packers.com/community/community-programs/play-60-challenge.html.
The program supports the NFL's Play 60 program. More than 160 Wisconsin schools have participated in Play 60 programs since 2007.
