As many of you are aware, for the last seven weeks Tri 4 Schools has been competing in the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA)-End Childhood Obesity Innovation Challenge. Partnership for a Healthier America is an organization that is dedicated to working with corporations and organizations in order to create new ways to fight childhood obesity. This year one of their promotions included the End Childhood Obesity Innovation Challenge, an opportunity for one corporation or organizations to turn their idea into a solution. The winner would receive a grant and the opportunity to present their idea in Washington D.C. amongst various experts that will assist in taking an idea and making it into reality.

Tri 4 Schools was up to the challenge. We submitted a video about our organization and the innovative way we tackle childhood obesity. Tri 4 Schools made it to the semi-finals where the next leg of the race to Washington D.C. was accumulating votes from those who support us in the community. The top three ideas with the most votes would receive the opportunity to present in D.C. We set out on our quest by sending out requests for vote through our Facebook friends and family. The efforts by our board members and team sent out mass emails and created events to go vote on Facebook. We even handed out flyers to random individuals at Starbucks and the UW campus, went to the Business School on the UW campus to get students to vote, and event wrote messages on chalk boards to get votes. Our efforts were not small!

The voting closed last Friday and we fell into fourth place. While the grant looked nice, we were really fight for the chance to go to Washington D.C. Yet, when you really think about it, it was the chance to take an “idea” and turn it into a “reality”. Fortunately for Tri 4 Schools, we are not still an “idea” but a REALITY. A very fast growing reality in the Dane County and surrounding areas. This challenge helped increase our exposure and even put us on the radar to those in Washington D.C. Even though we came in fourth, our “idea” does not end here! All of us at Tri 4 Schools believe in our truly innovative reality to help end childhood obesity and will continue to work to make this innovation a “reality” for kids across the state and then the nation!

Thank you to all of you who have voted and to all those who shared the opportunity with others! We deeply appreciate all of your efforts for Tri 4 Schools!