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NEWSWIRE
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Boston non-profit to open second free fitness center |
By Brian Davidson, Managing Editor - 04.03.2008
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DORCHESTER, Mass. - A non-profit foundation created by a Boston-based women's health club chain has broken ground on its second fitness center for poor women and children.
The Healthworks Foundation, which is partially funded by a percentage of membership dues from five Healthworks Fitness Centers, has served more than 5,000 low-income and homeless women since opening a free fitness center six years ago in a church in Dorchester, one of Boston's largest and poorest neighborhoods.
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"The program is designed to enhance the empowerment of women, both physically and emotionally, through the discipline of exercise," said Aleisha Agard, Healthworks Fitness' marketing director.
The foundation offers free fitness center memberships to homeless women, seniors on social security, pregnant or parenting teens, single mothers making $20,000 a year or less, and single women making $10,000 or less.
Now, the foundation is ratcheting up fundraising efforts to pay for another Dorchester location that will serve children as well.
The $800,000 facility will be built inside the Codman Square Health Center, which serves more than 41,000 patients.
Almost a third of the 9,000-square-foot gym will be dedicated to youth fitness.
"It's still going to have the core program for women, but there will be a separate component for children," Agard said. "We are very focused on getting underserved youths in Dorchester more active."
Healthworks Fitness has pledged to come up with half of the money still needed to complete construction and equip the facility, leaving about $300,000 to be raised.
Foundation leaders hope to secure a portion of that money this month.
"April is Foundation Awareness Month," Agard said. "Some of our members don't even know about the foundation, so we're taking an entire month to showcase it."
Half the initiation fee of every new Healthworks member this month will be donated to the foundation. That program alone could raise more than $30,000.
The foundation is also looking for corporate sponsors, such as Whole Foods Market, which handed over a check for almost $13,000 after agreeing to donate 5 percent of sales from its three stores in Boston.
"We're still working on fundraising and bringing in enough partners to make this a reality," said Agard. "But if all goes to plan, we should be ready to open by the end of the year."
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