The Yukon Kuskokwim Fitness Center celebrated its five-year anniversary last Friday. Cake, games, and speeches from the people who helped bring the Bethel fitness center to life marked the occasion.
Dozens of kids splash around in the pool or line up for the water slide. The hot tub is packed, and an intense bout of water polo is about to get underway at the other end of the pool.
For Bev Hoffman, one of YKFC’s biggest supporters, this is a dream come true.
“I still pinch myself,” Hoffman said.
She remembers beginning the effort to build a pool in Bethel over 40 years ago.
“Our main purpose was, look at all the drowning over the years on this river: 157 deaths over the last 11 years,” Hoffman said.
Now, she says people can learn to swim and not be as scared of the river. Plus, she says the weight room and workout classes at the fitness center are just as important.
“You can’t just have shelters and jails and treatment centers, you need healthy outlets and places for families to go,” Hoffman said.
For some, the fitness center is the reason they live in Bethel. Kevin Krenek was originally looking to be a nurse practitioner in Aniak or Hooper Bay. But when they told him only Bethel had a gym, he said, “I gotta go to Bethel, sorry. I can’t go to the [sub-regional clinics] because I need a place where I can go work out.”
Now, he teaches several workout classes at the fitness center and is there almost every morning and evening.
“It’s like my second home in a lot of ways because you kind of build a family here,” Krenek said.
“It’s the most beautiful, happy place in Bethel,” said Hoffman.
She says that the next goal will be adding on a basketball gym to bring more families into the fitness center.
