Cougars enhance Spirit of Healthy Kids program to include all of the north

The Spirit of Healthy Kids Program is being expanded to all of Northern BC.

It’s a partnership between the Prince George Cougars, Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation and Northern Health.

Since launching five years ago, 18-thousand students have been exposed to the program.

Cougars Vice-President of Business Andy Beesley told MyPGNow.com the program will now reach over 220 schools and 33-thousand students within the Northern Health Region.

“We take great pride in that we are the Prince George Cougars but we also recognize that as one of the leaders in this area we also have a responsibility throughout Northern British Columbia and we wanted to share this message as we thought it was too important not to do so with the rest of the region.”

Northern Health Coordinator of Community Funding Programs Andrew Steele is excited with the expansion.

“From the Northern Health perspective, one of the most important things that we can do in terms of moving health care upstream and keeping people healthy is to reach people when they are young so that they can form healthy habits early and the Spirit of the North Healthy Kids really enables us to do that.”

Six schools will be selected to participate in the challenge after they apply through the Northern Health website starting October 1st.

Steele stated what kind of activities the school-aged kids could be doing.

“Students will record time spent reading, physical activity and doing philanthropic work and a variety of other things and then the school with the highest percentage of the population will get a five thousand dollar grant for a project in their school.”

The remaining five schools will receive $1000 in funding from NH.

Beesley further explained that the regional portion of the program will be done via video where students watch the messages from Cougar players, then record their healthy activities on tracking sheets for a two-week period.