Estevan’s Fresh Air Fitness has been named one of the best free outdoor activities in Saskatchewan.
Ashlyn George, a go-to expert and writer on outdoor adventure activities in Saskatchewan for The Lost Girl’s Guide to Finding the World, recently published a list of the top five options Canada’s sunniest province has to offer. Fresh air Fitness was fourth.
Debby Knight, who is the Estevan fitness facility co-founder along with Peggy Rohatyn, talk about what it meant to them to receive this recognition.
“We are very, very honoured to have her (Ashlyn George) write about our facility like that,” said Knight. “We are just so proud of our whole community and everybody helping out with it. It’s a community project for sure.”
The blogger got to know about the Fresh Air Fitness facility and then reached out to co-founders to use some of their pictures. They didn’t know much about the story George was working on until it was published and shared through social media.
“When we saw the post on Facebook about that we had been actually mentioned as number 4 in the province, we were ‘Wow, that is really something,’” recalled Knight. “We are really honoured and happy about having the exposure for our facility and for the park of course.”
Knight is sure that the story by a popular writer will attract more users to the Fresh Air Fitness. A lot of people reached out to them to congratulate on the recognition and on the great project they have going.
“The more the word gets out … (the more) it would increase the use locally,” said Knight, adding that the article also may get some people travelling through the area to come and check out their well-equipped outdoor gym and meditation area.
But even prior to the publication, Fresh Air Fitness was already having quite a busy summer with the Force Fitness Challenge attracting hundreds of people to the site during the Rafferty Rumble weekend.
“Having that event out there is so exciting for us because we are seeing it being used for what we wanted it to be used for,” said Knight.
Besides attracting a lot of participants, the Force competition also gave the Fresh Air Fitness extra exposure with a lot of spectators checking it out during the day.
The outdoor facility also participated in Kids in a Park day on Aug. 1 and hosted a day with Kids First earlier this summer. The under the sky meditation area is also open to different yoga studios and groups having their classes down in Woodlawn Regional Park.
The project started in 2017 as a dream.
“(We thought) it might be cool if we could have a place that anybody could go to, because lots of times families, in particular, can’t afford a gym membership for all of their family. And here they can all go.”
Now Fresh Air Fitness is a fully functioning facility that offers people of all ages to come out with their families and friends any time of the day and week and take their time exercising, meditating and just enjoying the outdoor setting without any hustle.
“There is no charge. And the other super cool part about it that it is just there for anybody anytime,” said Knight, noting that people don’t even need to schedule their visits as the facility is always open to everybody willing to use it.
And more and more people are taking the opportunity, especially during summer.
