Help save APEX Louisville
* Ends September 28
As with the recent fate of many small businesses in Boulder, Colorado, we were forced out of our home in 2017. Our landlord terminated our lease in order to rent the space to one of their biggest existing clients, and we didn’t have the resources to face them in court with all the associated costs of time and money that would jeopardize our school’s survival. We fought hard to adapt and have survived the residual struggle, but it has recently become increasingly clear that the crippling debt from this move has increased our monthly overhead past the point of sustainability. Despite the long and grueling timeline of trying to solve this from every angle we could think of, we’re now in danger and need your help.
In the midst of our recent efforts to solve this problem, we realized we have a win-win situation available if we leverage all the other products and services that we’ve developed. Over the past 13 years, we have dedicated an immense amount of time and energy into creating the contribution rewards outlined in this campaign. To help show our gratitude, we are offering these rewards in exchange for your contributions that will help keep this vibrant community alive.
We’re at a crucial moment here, but we are not strangers to obstacles. Together, along with your help, we can ensure APEX Louisville has a beautiful and long future. So much love to you all for any contribution, no matter how big or small!
THE STORY OF APEX
APEX was one of the first formal parkour programs in the world. Those humble beginnings were over 12 years ago. Since then we’ve seen our communities grow in ways we couldn’t have fathomed. The Denver/Boulder area has one of the largest thriving parkour communities in the world. We’ve had thousands from ages 2 and up come through our doors and walk out mentally and physically stronger. We’ve led many programs for underprivileged and special needs youth, given scholarships to those with socio-economic challenges, organized Leave-No-Trace jams, and much more as part of our intent to be good stewards of the environment and our greater community. We’ve put on international level events and funded them mostly out of our own pockets. Within our continued efforts to invest in women in parkour, we took a firm stance in putting up equal cash prizes for men and women. We’ve hosted the annual North American Women’s Gathering. We’ve contracted out our space to help many other movement businesses get off the ground. We’ve invested so much into our athletes and coaches, many of whom are now big names on the international stage. We’ve put in a ton of effort to make parkour more accessible to people who don’t think they can do it too. We’ve given so much of our time to improving the standards and quality of parkour school design, coaching, and curriculum.
Two years ago, we were in the midst of wild success, constantly notching record-breaking months and on the verge of buying land in Boulder to build our first parkour school from the ground up. But our landlords terminated our lease, continuing a pattern that is becoming all too common in Boulder where small businesses are ruthlessly pushed out of city limits. We did not have the resources to face them in court without jeopardizing our school’s survival, so we kept our heads down and made the best of what we could control in order to survive.
The only available space that fit our requirements for a parkour school was a 20-minute drive away, causing a big drop-off in membership. The relocation process was extremely costly and time-consuming, partly because we moved into a brand new, unfinished space. Thus, we were forced to close our doors for over three months. In the end, the amount of debt we accrued to keep it alive has now amassed as overhead that has us in a sketchy position. We’ve put so much heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into our school’s revival, and we have in fact seen some major successes. Presently, we would have already been profitable and in a growth stage if it weren’t for the debt that has stagnated our progress.
WE ARE A PILLAR OF GRASSROOTS PARKOUR
If you’ve followed us for some of this journey, you know about our integrity in the face of big business, and you may know about the trials we’ve faced over the last few years in sticking to our values:
— We were on the way to pioneering our obstacle course competition format to the Olympics. We walked away from massive revenue opportunities when it became clear that the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) was deceiving and using us for their hidden agenda to govern global parkour competitions and education.
— We chose our people over money when we shut down one of our newest APEX locations due to coaches not being paid on time or treated fairly, among other poor business practices that we will not tolerate.
— Our harsh learning lessons with big business over the years have not gone to waste. We’ve walked away from big deals due to our ability to now see through the all-too-common deceptions in business, the dollar signs in executives’ eyes when they see the amazing feats and marketability that we’re capable of. In spring 2017 and as the red flags added up, we turned down an enormous licensing deal with a renowned equipment dealer who was looking to establish a new brand for parkour training equipment.
— Standing unflinchingly for our values does not typically pay out big dividends, and in many of our experiences, it’s quite the opposite.
— We have volunteered so much of our time in helping do the difficult job of getting a national governing body off the ground in the USA. The United States Parkour Association is the coming together of the grassroots parkour community, for the first time ever, and none of the people building it are being paid.
If you know our story, you know that we’ve always stuck with the grassroots parkour community and have never sacrificed our values for profits.
WHO BENEFITS?
This community needs your support, and we know that the resources we’ve created can change your life, make you a better mover, a more empowered human being, and/or help improve your business. If the resources presented are something you’ve been interested in, now is the time to invest in yourself while showing some love. If APEX or our other educational brand, ParkourEDU, have positively affected your life, now is the most crucial time to show us what it meant to you by contributing or spreading the word.
WHAT WILL THE FUNDS BE USED FOR?
Your contribution will go towards paying off our currently critical debt of $28,400 that has us dangerously close to having to consider closing our doors. Once this goal is met, we will value your contributions and do everything possible to not risk ending up in this position again in six months, so we’re raising an additional $60,000 to pay off our highest interest debt that has us trapped. This will ensure these doors stay open for many more years to come, and give us another shot at thriving as a community once again.
— Initial goal: $28,400
— Stretch goal: $88,400
WHAT THIS WILL MEAN TO THIS COMMUNITY
These contributions will mean the world to all the kids who have been training with us for over a decade, to the adults who have found refuge in this fun and functional fitness methodology. It will mean so much to the coaches and staff who depend on these jobs for their livelihood. It will be the lifeblood of the relationships that flourish under this roof in the name of movement arts. It will support one of the bastions of authentic grassroots parkour culture. It will mean everything to the founders of this school who have been working 100-hour weeks without pay.
OUR DEEPEST FORM OF GRATITUDE
We hope we can achieve showing our gratitude through the courses, products, and services we have put so much work into. We know these resources will benefit you no matter where you’re at in your parkour journey, such as:
— A complete beginner who has never tried parkour
— An intermediate practitioner filling in gaps in their understanding of how to fall correctly
— A coach who’s looking to expand their knowledge and skill of teaching
— A business owner or program director looking for more tools for success
We’re not going to simply say, “thank you.” We will show you we mean it by providing value through the offered rewards.
We’re at a crucial moment here, but we are not strangers to obstacles. Together, along with your help, we can ensure APEX Louisville has a beautiful and long future. So much love to you all for any contribution, no matter how big or small!
OTHER WAYS TO HELP
If you can’t contribute money, you can still help by clicking the “+” below and getting a personal link to share. This will track how much you’ve pulled together through others’ contributions that found shared after finding out through you.
You can also make your contribution with cryptocurrency:
— ETH: 0xd35CdEfdeDCD9b78bC7fadd06DbA1D9e6Fe937f9
— BTC: 3HGrKRLbqLjLnn85zpj7HvCDNTQ2RJsKvb
— LTC: LSxHMf8E6oUeDUsd6Dh9G9ukLkp1WvXMw4
REWARDS
$10 ($18 value)
— 6-pack of à la carte tutorials from Parkour 100 Series
— Personal thank you
$50 ($110 value)
— Choice of Parkour 101 or Parkour 102 ($110)
— 1 shout-out/repost on @apexmovement Insta (~37k followers)
— Personal thank you
$100 ($128 value)
— 6-pack of a la carte tutorials from Parkour 100 Series ($18)
— Choice of Art of Falling: Fundamentals or Climb-Up Blueprint; * both programs will be done later this summer ($110)
— 1 shout-out/repost on @apexmovement Insta
— Personal thank you
$100+ ($320-$10,000+ value)
To help show our gratitude for three higher-level contributions, we are providing some amazing and additional gifts from both ParkourEDU and APEX Louisville. If you have any questions about these levels, please email us at [email redacted].
* To claim your reward, you must email your donation receipt to [email redacted]. GoFundMe does not allow campaign organizers your email info. You must email us as a workaround.
