Planet Fitness shows a lot of heart
Woonsocket High on the receiving end of cardio equipment donation
WOONSOCKET — When the winter arrives, athletes at Woonsocket High School sometimes have to endure bad weather to put in a cardio workout for their particular sport or physical training pursuit.
That is likely to change with a donation from Planet Fitness of used cardio training machines that are now set up in the school gym and being used by Villa Novan athletes, students and even staff members.
“I think it is an amazing donation. I was so happy they thought of us,’’ Woonsocket High School Athletic Director Nancy Giordano said this week while showing off the new cardio workout area at the school.
The number of machines — 11 gym-quality treadmills, 18 elliptical cross trainers and 3 stationary bikes — is more than the high school could have ever hoped to purchase, even it had been able win funding somehow to do so.
Given the city’s tight constraints on spending, such a purchase for athletics would be almost impossible and it is only the generosity Woonsocket Planet Fitness owner Ann Marie Lukin that made it possible.
Lukin, who in addition to the Planet Fitness in Woonsocket Plaza on Diamond Hill Road also owns a Planet Fitness in Coventry, updated a number of the machines in her businesses and was looking for something to do with the equipment that been replaced.
After hearing that Woonsocket High School was interested in the machines, Lukin and Jason Emmett, Planet Fitness regional manager for Woonsocket and Cumberland, made it happen.
“I think it is awesome,” Lukin said while visiting Giordano at the gym. “It’s great that we can give this equipment to a school that doesn’t have the money to provide this type of equipment to their students,” she said.
The Lifefitness and Cydex equipment donated to the school is used but Planet Fitness has also agreed to provide any needed maintenance to put the units in good working order for the school. The treadmills, valued at approximately $7,000 each new, are still worth about $4,000 each, and elliptical units, usually costing about $2,600 new, average about $1,700 used, Emmett said.
Planet Fitness requires a complete update of equipment at its locations every five years and the machines donated to Woonsocket High School were made available as part of that process at both the Woonsocket and Coventry locations, Emmett said.
“Initially, we didn’t know what we were going to do with the equipment and put it aside in storage and then we decided we would donate it,” he said.
A retired teacher assistant from Woonsocket High School, Jocelyn Allaire, a member of the Woonsocket Planet Fitness, heard about the business’s interest in giving away the machines and took the idea back to the high school, Giordano said. “She thought of the school first and told them she would see if the school was interested,” Giordano said. “We definitely were,” she said. Both High School Principal Carnell Henderson and Vice Principal Brian Bouley, who have been involved in the athletic department in the past, welcomed the donation and the equipment was soon installed against a wall of the gym under the banners of past Interscholastic League championship won by school teams.
Although the cardio machines will be a welcome asset for school runners during the winter and wrestling team members looking to sharpen their fitness before a big match, Giordano said the equipment is also being used by the school’s physical education classes and students and staff just looking for some healthy exercise.
The school’s past athletic director, the late George Nasuti, had been interested in obtaining more cardio units than the two treadmills and two elliptical units in the downstairs weight room at the school and Giordano said he would be pleased to see the new cardio area in the gym today.
“This benefits everyone at the school,” Giordano said while noting the use the machines have been getting since they were installed.
The Cardio area is used only when the gym is open and staffed by teachers and athletic department coaches, Giordano noted.
A number of the school’s athletes also have memberships at Planet Fitness and Giordano said they were pleased to see the same type of equipment now in place at the gym.
As for the potential for workout machines to spur more success among the school’s teams, Giordano said she can’t make any promises about that but did note “I hope they will.”