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You all have been so amazing with the Fit Club coverage. The program’s going great and at week four we have a combined weight loss of 46 lbs!!!

This Tuesday at Fit Club is a level ceremony 5 or 6 kids will move to the next level “JV Starter” because of their attendance, commitment, participation. They, the kids moving up, will be hosted by the American Theatre for a special screening of Hoosiers one of my favorites and chosen because of the message –overcoming adversity. We have several more special events like this planned as there are four levels.

On Thursday, July 17th Try Sports, the tri-athlete fitness store in Mt Pleasant, is coming, big rig and all, to outfit each child individually in fitness shoes chosen specifically for them. They’ll donate the shoes, socks and t-shirts but we are making the kids earn them. Until they have 50+ gold stars they’ll have to only wear the shoes at Fit Club and turn them back in at the end of every workout. If the kids don’t ever earn them –they’ll be donated to another charity.

We all understand and are in agreement at Fit Club that this is about changing long-term patterns of behavior, it’s the only way they’ll be successful. Kids will have to earn these things and they’ll do so by changing their behavior. It won’t be easy –no one expects that it will, there’s a lot going against these kids, but we’ll be there with them –every step of the way and long after the program ends. The kids will be hosted for months online in group sessions they’ve become used to. The Mitchell Elementary school media center will be available for them to log on for it.

We go for an additional physical fitness opportunity every Saturday –last Saturday they got to swim with Bucky and other members of the CofC squad (you all might remember that our Program Director, Bucky Buchanan, is a former competitive swimmer for the College of Charleston and also the swim coach for the state ranked Snee Farm team.  Our Behavior Coach in the room is Mitchell’s own, Shavonna Coakley (6th grade teacher, former title-1 school graduate, mom of 3 and Master’s candidate for school administration) heading up the behavioral portion of this great program. This Saturday we’ll walk (2 Saturday’s ago we walked over 7,000 steps) but we’d be so open to biking, hiking etc. We are hoping to have the climbing wall coming down  to the school on August 5th (God willing) and we’ve had yoga instructors, Tae-Bo instructors, Aerobic Instructors –Wando Football players, we’ve had a host of people already grace our doorway and work out with the kids.