“One act of kindness leads to another act of kindness, and fostering that in our small community of 70-75 members hopefully will radiate out from there.”
This Christmas, Warrior CrossFit Muscatine is giving one of its members three months of CrossFit for free.
While other boxes greet the season with nutrition challenges and wicked workouts, CrossFit Muscatine’s owner, Sarah Garvin, is challenging her athletes to commit 1,000 acts of kindness by Jan. 6, 2013, in their hometown of Muscatine, Iowa.
“One thousand acts of kindness is our effort to make a positive impact on our community during the holiday season,” she says.
It isn’t the first unusual challenge. In seasons past, Garvin asked athletes to take 10,000 steps each day for 30 days. And once, she programmed Annie daily for a month. This year, she’s turning the focus outward.
“During the holidays, I was thinking of how we could do something like that, but have a greater impact among our community and among ourselves,” she says.
The premise is simple. Athletes dole out kindnesses, large and small, to strangers, community members, family, friends and other athletes. Acts, which have ranged from giving a stranger a lift, to donating blood to contributing to charity, are then posted anonymously at the box.
“It’s a great way of highlighting what we already do in the gym,” Garvin says. “CrossFit gyms are (about) more than lifting weights.”
Garvin’s goal is to use her force of CrossFitters to send “ripples of hope” into the broader community.
“Because we are a small micro-community within (many different) communities, the circle of influence is pretty large,” she says. “One act of kindness leads to another act of kindness, and fostering that in our small community of 70-75 members hopefully will radiate out from there.”
CrossFit, Garvin says, naturally poises athletes to have a positive influence on others.
“I think the successes that people feel — that personal satisfaction they get from the gym — they want to share that,” she says. “They want other people to feel awesome, and they think, ‘I’ve done this for me, I’d love to see you do it for you and I’d love to help you do it.”
Lori Baker believes CrossFitters have a responsibility to make the world better.
“We make (ourselves) healthy to be a good example to other people, but I also think you have to do what you can to help others,” she says. “It can be physical labor, time — all those things we can do to provide service to our community and to the world.”
CrossFitter Cindy Klebe has noticed her acts of kindness coming back around to her.
“Engaging in acts of kindness can and does have the same effect on us,” she says. “We go through the exercise of the act and we reap the feel-good benefits.”
Garvin hopes athletes will continue offering up kindness beyond the holiday season. Ultimately, she’s out to show the world that CrossFit offers something special.
“CrossFit is intimidating. It’s daunting to look at people throwing around weights and jumping on boxes,” she says. “I hope it sends a message that we’ve got a warm group of people that want to do good things for themselves, their health and the people around them.”
One anonymous athlete donated nearly $300 to Warrior CrossFit Muscatine for Garvin and co-owner, Jacob Garvin, to use as they saw fit. Paying it forward, they are putting the money toward three months of unlimited membership for an athlete who is yet to be determined.
“More than anything I was hoping that it might bring someone into the gym who wouldn’t have tried it otherwise,” the undisclosed benefactor says. “Or help someone struggling this time of year because they have so many obligations or lost a job. (It’s about) what we can do as a collective group to help our gym and extend our knowledge into the community.”
