Weston Bakeries anticipates getting about 700,000 elementary school students engaged with its Wonder Bread brand in the next eight weeks after the Oct. 10 kick-off of the third annual Wonder Fresh Fitness Challenge. About 2,400 Canadian schools registered for this year’s challenge. Half a million kids got engaged in the 2005 challenge, an increase of 200% over the program’s inaugural year, and logged 41 million minutes (79 years) of exercise over the eight-week period.

Toronto HQ’d Weston Bakeries national promotion manager Julian Franklin says the challenge is ‘a bold demonstration of the value we place in active living… To date, we have grown more than 40% over last year. Our goal for 2006 is to increase that reach by 50%.’

A new contest component, dubbed the ‘Move to Your Groove’ contest, promises to make the school with the highest average minutes of exercise famous by printing their school name and photo on a package of Wonder Bread in 2007, along with the opportunity to be featured in kidsworld magazine, which also helped deliver the program to schools.

The challenge kicked off on Oct. 10 and aims to keep elementary school kids engaged on a daily basis until Dec. 3. The program got an early push in grocery stores nationwide, starting in mid-August, with POP promos and a contest to win 1 of 10 iPods. Promotion also includes the distribution of free materials to the schools, such as a teachers’ guide with age-appropriate activities and health-related lessons, a ‘Move to Your Groove’ CD, posters, participation certificates for the students and an interactive microsite, www.wonderfitness.ca, with weekly tallies, draws, prizes and features on participating schools. The site also features an online odometer.

The Wonder Fresh Fitness Challenge is administered by school marketing specialists MIR Communications, with public relations handled by Toronto-HQ’d Argyle Rowland Communications. In-store promotions were run by the Laval, Que. agency SV&M.