Believe It. Achieve It., held its 6th Annual WilWin Games at Castle Park Middle School on May 10. Founded by Believe It. Achieve It. Executive Director Jared Williams and Director of Operations Julian Herrera, Believe It. Achieve It. is a nonprofit that focuses on health and wellness designed to educate the body and strengthen the mind through physical fitness. This year’s WilWin Games brought in around 55 Sweetwater Union High School District middle school students in teams of 10 to 11 from Castle Park Middle School, Mar Vista Academy, Southwest Middle School, Granger Middle High School, and Chula Vista Middle School, which brought in students from Chula Vista, National City, and South Bay San Diego.
“In our program, it is not just the star athlete that wins,” said Williams. “It is students that are smart, know how to figure out puzzles, word problems, obstacle challenges, balance, coordination, agility, and athleticism. It takes it all to be a winner in our team sport.”
The Gold Place winner for this year’s WilWin Games was Southwest Middle School, and as the grand prize winner will be recognized at the San Diego Wave match on June 7 at 7 p.m., where the students will have a behind-the-scenes experience in the High-Five Tunnel with the players. In addition, all the teams that competed this year will be able to attend the game for free.
Williams said they came up with the idea of the WilWin games, wanting something that gives back to the students at the end of the year. Part of the games is to show their skills on the field, and things they learned throughout the school year.
“Our critical thinking area. We have puzzles, word challenges, problems solving, all from what they learned throughout the school year. We do the obstacle course, water engagements, relay races, and more. The WilWin Games touches on all of this. We do this with our in-school program,” he said.
This year, Williams said even with some funding difficulty from some schools, this year’s WilWin games were extremely successful. He said Sweetwater “put them on the map” for the upcoming summer program.
“The WilWin Games are about giving back, and letting the kids gain something at the end. The great thing about our games is that all these kids work towards something throughout the year, having fun with us, going through the obstacle course, meeting new friends, not fighting, and have emotional wellness as well. All the kids had a blast,” he said. “We had vendors, a photo booth, a taco food truck, the military who we partnered with, who will partner with us over the summer games. They had trophies, prizes, the most giveaways we have ever had, and there was a dance party at the end.”
Williams said it now has a five-year contract with the San Diego Unified School District and began the WilWin Games with the SUHSD.
“It has gone great each year,” he said. “The first games, NBC came out and it grew from there. All the schools wanted us. We wanted to go big. We got medals, prizes for the students, vendors, and it was really exciting,” he said, adding after the first games, all the schools were onboard with the program and began working with many other schools. “It was a domino effect. Last year, we had a multi-school event with the SDUHSD and the SUHSD at Logan Memorial Educational Campus, k-12, and it was a pinnacle place to use and have the WilWin Games there. It was excellent.”
Herrera said Believe It. Achieve it. is a health solutions organization that works with youth across San Diego County k-12, providing healthy and dynamic wellness programs that cater to all ages and abilities, encouraging a dynamic lifestyle for all.
“What we really pride ourselves on is the participation rates that we get during our programs,” he said. “We have two base programs that we offer. One is in school during the school day which takes place during the physical education period. This program is great because we access the entire student population. Predominantly we work with middle schools, which is a real sweet spot because there is not a lot of data out there on the health and rates of some students. Participation rates since the pandemic have been very low during PE and we have seen increases in obesity, anxiety, depression among middle teenage students. During the PE period, we can reach 100 to 150 students per period, all 600 to 800 students on campus. We have made a lasting impact because our program lasts one week at a certain school site.”
