Thank You Fitness Partners
We have modeled for years that healthy eating and active play are synergistic, each reinforcing the other to paint a more complete picture of wellness. This week, we would like to finish painting our picture. Last week we featured the work of our Chef Partners during COVID-19. Now we would like to shed light on the great work of our Fitness Partners, who have been keeping us moving, stretching, and dancing. A good deal of attention has been directed at those partaking in emergency feeding and donating meals for healthcare providers (and rightly so!), but we also wanted to take this space to recognize and applaud the individuals who encourage us to touch our toes and compete in a triathlon in our living room. In a time when many of us are more sedentary than usual, we are realizing that movement is more important than ever for our emotional, mental, and physical health.
First, we are grateful to the sports coaching and mentorship platform Famer for donating their time, resources, and knowledge so that we can share our virtual fitness and food programming through their software app. We developed WITS-specific activities, filmed at home by our WITS Chefs and Coaches, and Famer polished the videos for its platform to be shared with our school network. While our team is not able to be in schools, Famer has made it possible for us to continue teaching children healthy habits while at home.
And of course, we are thankful to our Fitness Partners. So many of them have created innovative ways to keep us active during this pandemic, despite the obvious restrictions (we can’t freely go outside, we have limited equipment, and some of us are in tiny NYC apartments, to name a few). Here’s what some of our Partners have been doing:
- Volo Sports keeps our young, house-bound kids engaged through free yoga sessions and Virtual Simon Says
- Yogi Beans leads livestream kids yoga
- Mile High Run Club holds runner-specific indoor Zoom workouts and audio-coaches outdoor runs.
- Pro volleyball player Gillian Johnson has provided her time and resources for our Famer videos, teaching children how to master the leap frog.
- The Class by Taryn Toomey has created free online kids classes for our school partners.
- WITS Coach for Kids Ambassador Jenna Wolfe used her passion for fitness for Famer, teaching children how to master the burpee, everyone’s favorite fitness move.
We know that creating this kind of remote content can be challenging, especially when ‘fitness classes’ traditionally rely on collaborative in-person energy, yet our Fitness Partners are determinedly pushing forward (and pushing us forward, as well). Active play has always been a key pillar of our work, and the pandemic has drawn public attention to the importance of good health, with fitness being one side of the good health coin. Whether today in our bedrooms and living rooms, or tomorrow in your studios, fields and courts, we send a collective THANK YOU to our Fitness Partners for keeping us moving and keeping us healthy and strong, both mentally and physically.