We Rove CHA
We love our hometown of Chattanooga… but it needs a change. We’ve got an idea to help.
We’re proud of our home town. Our company was started in Chattanooga in 2010 and has been headquartered here, since then.
The funny thing is, none of the early team was born here… but we all gravitated toward this special place, with its unique blend of outdoor splendor, southern charm, and historical significance. Chattanooga is a place of meetings and intersections. As our original website said, “Chattanooga TN: where Tennessee meets Georgia, the mountains meet the rivers, gigabyte-per-second Internet meets world-class hiking trails, and our company soccer team meets every Tuesday night to put on a goal-scoring clinic.”
It’s also a place of transformation. In 1969, Walter Cronkite famously described Chattanooga as the dirtiest city in America. By 2011, Outside Magazine recognized it as the “Best Town Ever.” And again, in 2015 — the first and only time a city has won twice. Talk about a turnaround! So, we came with the Chattanooga renaissance fully underway, but it hasn’t slowed down: from The Gig to the renovated Southside to the Innovation District, this City has truly recreated itself. And the world is taking notice, with Scenic City getting love from everyone from The New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to CNN Money … to Red Bull. Here’s a video from Nokia that tells some of the story:
But there’s still more to do.
Over the last few months, we’ve been dismayed to see Chattanooga showing up on the radar for more troubling reasons:
Earlier this month, a report of the Healthiest Cities in America listed Chattanooga as one of the unhealthiest of the 150 most populated cities in the United States. Our beloved city came in at #132. Even worse, earlier this year, the same source placed Chattanooga at #6 in America’s Fattest Cities.
Unfortunately, this isn’t entirely unexpected. In 2013, Gallup and Healthways released findings from their Well-Being Index, which includes over 2.5 million surveys … and Chattanooga came in at #8 on their list of least healthy cities.
Unacceptable! We love this city. We have been impressed, too many times, by the people who live here, and their ability to transform themselves and their community, to believe that this unhealthy trend is just ‘the way things are.’ We believe that change is the Chattanooga way.
Fortunately, we’re not the only ones who think that. We’ve been excited to follow along with Mayor Berke’s Chattanooga Get Fit challenge, and when we launched our latest app, Rove, earlier this month, there was an obvious opportunity for collaboration.
So, today, we’re excited to announce the result: The nation’s first city-wide, digital step tracking league!
We’ll be officially kicking off this new league, next week (Wednesday, September 6!) with a step competition, but you can join the league, today! All you need to do is download the Rove app, for free, from the App Store or Google Play (search for “Rove Fitness”), and then click this link: https://rove.fit/werovecha
That’s it! You’ll be able to sync steps tracked with your smartphone or any wearable device that syncs with Apple Health or Google Fit. Those steps will be added, in real time, to the League Leaderboard and, when the competition starts, to your team’s total! You’ll also be able to compare your steps with Mayor Berke… how’s that for political accountability??
Changing the health of our city is a big goal. We realize it will take some time, and there are a lot of factors: fitness is not the only metric of health, but it plays a key role. And, although it’s not easy, it is relatively simple: So, our goal is to gather our city, to explore fitness, together!
In addition to the #WeRoveCHA league, you can also use Rove to create some of your own Leagues. Whether it’s with your family, a group of friends, or some co-workers, Rove is a great way to add some fitness accountability and friendly competition into your relationships.
Let us know what you think, and see you on Rove!
