City of Maricopa receives award for innovation in fitness

PHOENIX — The National Fitness Campaign announced on Wednesday that it has awarded the city of Maricopa the 2019 Healthy Infrastructure Award in Innovation.

The Healthy Infrastructure Awards crowns its winners in five categories: design excellence and innovation, leadership, programming excellence and storytelling.

Maricopa was recognized for its ability to bring new ideas into the fitness platform and had the first Fitness Court built citywide to connect residents in the community with wellness initiatives.

“When Mayor Christian Price announced a citywide fitness challenge, their residents answered the call and supported in an unprecedented way,” founder of the National Fitness Campaign Mitch Menaged said in a press release.

“Integrating the Fitness Court mobile app into their already active lifestyle, this group of all ages and fitness levels got moving and have fully leveraged their new outdoor gym. We applaud the city of Maricopa for the commitment to make healthy lifestyles a priority for their residents.”

The Fitness Court is located at Pacana Park on Honeycutt Road just east of Service Road 347 and is dedicated to Maricopa’s firefighters, police officers and veterans.

Other cities to win awards were Oklahoma City; Avenal, California; Loveland, Colorado; and Killeen, Texas.

“We want to bring everybody together, not just veterans and first responders, we want to make the park more useful for all,” Maricopa marketing and development coordinator Matthew Reiter said in the release.

“We want this community to have full support of fitness and nutrition resources to achieve their goals.”

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