West Chicago's Move with the Mayor Campaign recruits DuPage mayors for friendly competition

Earlier this year, West Chicago Mayor Ruben Pineda presented a compelling invitation to other DuPage County mayors at the June Mayors and Mangers conference call to join him in a national movement campaign to increase community health through an increase in physical activity.

For the fourth year, West Chicago will be participating in the Move with the Mayor campaign, this year virtually. It is a sponsored by Healthy West Chicago and the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. It encourages walking and other forms of physical activity to get people moving.

Along with the additional outreach of Healthy West Chicago program administrator Carly Smitherman and the forum's Jen Childress and Debbie Martinez, several elected leaders jumped on board with the national challenge. Among them are Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, Hanover Park Mayor Rodney Craig, Bloomingdale Mayor Franco Coladipetro, Bartlett Mayor Kevin Wallace, Glendale Heights Village President Linda Jackson, and Glen Ellyn Village President Diane McGinley.

Smitherman has been working with California app designer Heka Health and the forum to share the custom step tracker with the additional participating communities in time for the Sept. 1 start date.

Joining the app is easy by downloading it, completing the in-app registration and pairing it with your favorite activity device whether that be a FitBit, Garmin, Apple watch or those built into a Smart device. Details are included at www.hekahealth.com/wchicago with support offered at info@hekahealth.com.

For more information on MWTM, visit www.westchicago.org or www.healthywestchicago.org.