Fight to strengthen under-resourced communities

A message from the founder

For me, this journey is deeply personal. Growing up in an under-resourced community that didn’t have health and wellness programs, I saw my community falling behind in our fitness and overall health. I experienced firsthand the frustrations when my doctor instructed me to get more exercise. We are told to get cardio for heart health, strength training for stronger bones and meditation for mental health. So where do we go to get this, how can we afford it, and where do we get the health and fitness education? Most community members give up. To find resources like those, our community members would have to:

Travel miles out of their communities for resources

Pay high prices for group or personal training sessions (+$ knowledge of special needs)

Pay additional fees for “facility” training or extra costs for in-home training

Pay extra costs for equipment for home training

These costs could add up to hundreds of dollars per month. Most community members cannot spend that kind of money on fitness.

Health and fitness resources should be available for everyone and all communities. Creating and living a healthy lifestyle is not a luxury. It is a right and should be accessible and affordable for everyone.

Fit To The Core Inc provides life-changing and life-saving services to our under-resourced communities. These communities, especially our aging adults, have been disproportionately hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to provide health, wellness and fitness resources to rebuild and strengthen these communities. We will bring fitness and wellness to them, provide professional instruction specific to their needs, provide the exercise supplies & equipment needed for success and charge little to nothing for the services. Please help us bridge this gap!!

Nuff said!

Tracie

We are Fit To The core, an organization dedicated to promoting an active lifestyle among the aging population in our under-resourced, minority communities. Fit to the Core was established by Tracie VanHook, a professional fitness trainer and program director with over 30 years of experience in fitness training and functional aging. Tracie’s vision is to create a world where everyone can age well, regardless of their underlying health, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. Through Fit To The Core, she has created a team of passionate individuals to build and promote health and wellness programs that serve our minority communities.

Having received our 501c3 status in the Spring of 2021, we immediately started raising funds and building fitness programs within the Belle Haven community. We began with an outdoor exercise program at Kelly Park in April, followed by two more programs in June and August. After receiving a local grant from Meta (Facebook) in the Summer of 2021, we were off and running, reaching out to build support and health and fitness outreach into our community.

At the same time, we established a weekly walking group on Saturday morning, which has continued and evolved into what we call “The Movement.” This has become an ongoing, weekly community walk that fosters fitness and a growing sense of connection with our neighbors. We walk and talk together, and the Movement creates a unique opportunity for participants to stay in shape and connect on community issues.

Throughout this year, we have continued to focus on community outreach, participating in local health fairs in both February and June (two community Juneteenth health fairs in Belle Haven and East Palo Alto.) We have built partnerships with city officials in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto and created new partnerships with other local nonprofit organizations. This has led to expanding our services into East Palo Alto by introducing an Intergenerational fitness project this Summer in their local parks.

The community impact of these programs cannot be overstated. Through successful fundraising and partnering, we have provided free health and fitness programs to severely under-resourced communities. We have offered safe and highly professional access to healthy activities for all ages, focusing on our seniors. We have been able to offer programs that re-connect the members of our community who have been isolated during these difficult times.

The success of our summer program was overwhelming, leading us to build a more extensive, extended program in East Palo Alto. It includes indoor and outdoor fitness programs and a new walking group program in East Palo Alto. It is happening now and will continue into the winter and spring of 2023.

Fit to the Core's Founder, Tracie VanHook, featured

in SF Examiner's 2022 guide to Senior Living

Our main goal is to continue to build on the success of these programs and expand the number and frequency of health and fitness events and programs in our community. We need your help in order to accomplish this.

Your donations will allow us to:

To further our outreach into the communities

To build a more extensive professional training team

To purchase equipment for new participants

To create additional health, fitness, and nutritional resources

To add bilingual resources to reach all members of our community.

We have been a leading health and fitness organization in our communities, providing vital health and fitness resources to our under-resourced communities. And we have been providing this at a time when maintaining good health is one of the best ways to protect us from the effects of COVID.

With your help, we will build upon these successes as we expand both our programming and our reach, continue to support the health and wellness of families through the ongoing COVID crisis, and launch new health and fitness initiatives that will both improve the overall health of our community members but also improve the social connections between us.

You can help us grow the number of people we educate, train, and connect to build a safer, healthier, and robust community. Please consider a year-end gift, and you can help us all age well.

We thank you in advance for your understanding and your generosity! HAPPY HOLIDAYS & A BLESSED NEW YEAR