Farmington gym teacher Joe McCarthy has broken into the world of professional basketball. Well, sort of.
This fall, the Timberwolves and Lynx are sponsoring Get Fit, a pilot program that encourages kids to be active outside of school. The program is based on the Century Club, which McCarthy created for fourth and fifth graders at Meadowview Elementary.
Get Fit, like the Century Club, is "a program that's designed to get kids to be active every day," said McCarthy, also a national speaker on the benefits of physical education and a coach at Farmington High School.
With Get Fit, which runs through Dec. 15, kids can earn a Timberwolves ticket, a poster and other prizes for exercising outside of school. For every 15 minutes of activity they get a point, and 75 points earns them the ticket and prizes.
So far, 20,000 Minnesota kids in second through eighth grade have signed up from 60 school districts, said Joanna Opitz, a Timberwolves account representative who helped start the program.
"The beauty of it is that kids choose their own activity … No matter what they do, it counts," McCarthy said of both programs.
The Timberwolves, who have donated prizes to the Century Club in the past, approached McCarthy last spring because they wanted to create a fitness program that would reward kids for being active, he said.
With kids' activity levels decreasing, it's more important than ever to get them moving outside of school, Opitz said.