UTRGV is currently in first place in the large-university category in It’s Time Texas Community Challenge, with over 100 registrants.
The community challenge started Jan. 8. It is sponsored by H-E-B and hosted by the nonprofit organization, It’s Time Texas.
The statewide organization focuses on “dramatically improving the landscape of health and wellness in Texas,” according to www.itstimetexas.org.
In an interview with The Rider, Cindy Salazar-Collier, Rio Grande Valley regional coordinator for It’s Time Texas, said the challenge “is a statewide competition among all of the communities, school districts and universities of the state to see which can engage in the most healthy actions.”
“The purpose of this challenge is to promote health involvement and to change the culture of health among the communities of the state of the Texas,” Salazar-Collier said. “We are not a weight loss competition. … The community challenge is really just to embrace health involvement and to encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle.”
More than 70 Texas universities are registered in the challenge, according to Salazar-Collier.
She said UTRGV is in first place in the large-college category with over 100 registrants, giving the university 83,900 points.
“You all are winning in the large-college category by over 40,000 points with Texas Tech coming in second place,” Salazar-Collier said. “In the Rio Grande Valley as a whole, we have over 2,000 individuals who have registered for the Community Challenge.”
It’s Time Texas Regional Assistant Ralf Lopez said the categories are organized by population.
“It is city against city, like, Brownsville would compete against a same size city. UTRGV would compete against a same size university,” Lopez said.
He said the communities, universities or school districts with the most points would win. He also said one of the ways participants can accumulate points is by taking photos of themselves doing healthy activities.
“You are drinking a glass of water. You take a selfie of it and you upload it to our website and you get points for that,” Lopez said. “You can input how much weight you have lost, how much exercise you have done. If you have like a Fitbit or an [Apple] Watch or something like that, you can link it to our website and that will track it for you.”
He said school principals or superintendents can sign pledges and upload a photo of the pledge to earn points for the community challenge.
Salazar-Collier said people have the option to designate their points to either a university or a school district, besides giving the points to their communities.
“[You] register under Brownsville and then it will ask if you want to designate your points to a school district or a university,” she said. “If students were to register, they can also allocate their points in that manner. Basically, anybody in the community that wants to give their points to UTRGV can do so.”
Brownsville is currently in eighth place in the large-size community category, according to Salazar-Collier.
She said that regardless of whether or not you choose to designate your points to a university or school district, all of the points go to your community.
“The interesting part of the community challenge is that it is a communitywide effort,” Salazar-Collier said. “It could be alumni that are doing this. It could be friends and family of current UTRGV students. It could be UTRGV students themselves, faculty, staff, all of these individuals can attribute to UTRGV coming in first in its category.”
It’s Time Texas will recognize the winners of each category. Winning school districts and universities will be awarded, as well, with grants, according to Salazar-Collier.
Lopez said there are also weekly prizes.
“Every week, there is a drawing for prizes such as gym memberships or even Fitbits,” he said. “There is a lot of good prizes. People should not be discouraged by saying, ‘Oh, they already started last month. I am not going to win anything.’ No. If you sign up, you do the log in and the points, you can win some nice prizes.”
To register for the challenge, visit www.ittcommunitychallenge.com.
“Click the register button,” Lopez said. “It takes two to three minutes. All you need is an email and create a new password.”
Anyone over age 14 can join the challenge. Registrations for the It’s Time Texas Community Challenge are still open, according to Lopez.
Salazar-Collier said the challenge is important because this will help more people be engaged in healthy activities.
“A lot of times we need to see each other engage in these actions to encourage one another,” she said. “That is what we are hoping happens through the community challenge. Not that only people get … competitive because people want to win, but that they make lifestyle changes. That they build relationships with their friends, family [and] peers to make these changes and that these changes carry on after the community challenge.”
The challenge will end on March 4.
Lopez urges people to register for the challenge and encourages people to contact him at ralf@itstimetexas.org for more information.
