Here come the hot steppers, the Chili Steppers from Canutillo Elementary School are once again, for the second consecutive year, one of the top three teams to have collectively taken the most steps for the El Paso Border Coalition for Fitness Walk the Walk Challenge out of 102 participating teams across the city. Step by step, they also managed to claim the spot as mini-challenge champions.
The Walk the Walk Challenge is a month-long team effort that challenges participants to get as many steps as possible for fitness. The Canutillo Elementary School team was made up of physical education teachers and teachers of various grade levels at the campus to include Martin Carrillo, Yvonne Carrillo, Myrtha Munoz, Ana Peru, Jeanette Morales, Nadia Juarez, Jacqueline Moreno, Rachel Tellez, Mirna Gallegos, and Cathia Vogt.
“Walking is an active way to collaborate, destress, and have a mental break,” said team leader, Martin Carrillo. “As part of our own social-emotional learning we had Saturday team walks, after-school hallways walks, and mini-challenges from the coordinators that we also won.”
The Canutillo Elementary Chili Steppers concluded the challenge with 4,721,221 total steps with each team member averaging more than 15,700 steps a day each with some getting up to 30,000 a day.
“A takeaway from this challenge was that we really practiced what we as a campus teach our students with the Leader in Me,” said Jeanette Morales, CES teacher. “We set a goal to reach (Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind) and we work together to accomplish it (Habit 6: Synergize) but most importantly, walking and exercising help with our mind, body, heart, and spirit (Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw). We can say that we lead by example to our CES students.”