Video: Tupelo High School Seniors ‘Making The Grade’ With Healthy Project

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TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – On a recent afternoon, four THS seniors joined area trainers and other physical fitness enthusiasts for a summit hosted by Mayor Jason Shelton .

The seniors spoke briefly about their project called the Well Initiative, which seeks to provide free exercise and fitness classes weekly throughout the city.

After other ideas for public exercise events were exchanged at the Fitness Summit, most of the crowd stepped outside, to the front porch of city hall, at Fairpark, where the Seniors had organized the first group activity, an aerobics class, with the help and participation from Mayor Shelton.

“We saw during the mayor’s campaign where he wanted to do free public event and that correlated into our senior project topic which was health throughout Tupelo then we forwarded that onto the mayor and asked if he was interested in letting us help him and he told us yes,” said Heston Lollar, a THS senior.

“Their senior project goes hand in hand with the healthy initiative that Tupelo does and that’s just to promote a healthy lifestyle here,” Mayor Shelton said.

SNAP Fitness Instructor Sydney Darnell led the routine. She believes increased emphasis on exercise and fitness will have a far reaching impact.

“I think as our city government is really helping , with that leadership, we’re just going to follow and I think that’;s going to be a really neat thing for our city and for other cities to catch on with us,” Darnell said.

The seniors say they are honored to not only be making the grade on a required project, but also they are honored to be able to help many residents.

“We kind of found out that exercise and being healthy just helps overall your productivity and helping you be a better person, helps you feel better about yourself,” said Jarett Estess, THS senior.

The next public event the seniors have organized is a Zombie Run. It’s a 5 k set for next Tuesday evening.