The recent additions and renovations to the Recreation and Wellness Center not only opened new doors for students to keep active and maintain physical wellness, but also for students to step into leadership roles managing the daily operation of the building.
Meet the Fit Crew: A core group of six students who are responsible for ensuring that each Gannon and Erie community member who comes to the Rec Center is satisfied with the environment, resources and their time spent within the facility. Seemingly a rather large responsibility to oversee, considering the average number of patrons who use the Center daily, the students’ teamwork and dedication to wellness and the patrons overshadows the task at hand.
Hear more from members of the Fit Crew and learn how the group comes together to keep the operations of the Recreation and Wellness Center running smoothly.
“To be a part of Fit Crew was an opportunity for me for the first time to do something other than academics and sport, so I looked at it with open arms,” said Brian Ratajczak, a sophomore in the Masters of Athletic Training program and member of the Gannon baseball team. “When it comes to baseball, it’s all about hard work. When it comes to Fit Crew, the leadership and hard work in order to have a successful outcome is essential to push things forward to help our patrons have a better time while they’re here.”
Aside from learning vital customer service and relationship building skills that will benefit the students in their careers after graduation, the students are able to see their work make a difference in the development of each other and the patrons.
Senior Julia Leix, a pre-medical biology major, finds it important to encourage students to find time for wellness, even if it is something they’ve never focused on. “During October we held Fall Frenzy [a national competition in which Gannon finished second]; I had a chance to speak out to students, and there were a few that had never been here and they tried getting on the bike and they rode… actually, they came back the next weeks and the next weeks,” she said. “I think health and wellness is one of the most important things as a wellbeing, as an individual, and we’re here to help you take those steps.”
“It makes me feel that I can be bigger than myself, be part of something that is more than just me, and help others along the way too.”
A longtime student-worker of the Recreation and Wellness Center, Lindsay Corbett ‘13 has been a mentor to the Fit Crew students. A third-year graduate student in the Clinical and Mental Health Counseling program, Corbett was a work-study student at the Center throughout all four of her undergraduate years at Gannon. “I think it is nice because I’m one of the older people of the Fit Crew, and especially being a graduate student, I’m hearing some of the same transitions that I went through in my past,” she said. “Having that moment to sit back and watch people develop, I now find rewarding because I know people did that for me.”
First-year, pre-medical biology student Jeremy Santarelli welcomed the opportunity for mentoring and becoming involved on campus through wellness and the Fit Crew.
“When I first got the message that I was hired on staff, it was halfway through the summer, I hadn’t even been to Gannon besides just to visit. There were so many new faces and it was overwhelming at first,” said Santarelli. “Then when you get into the big family of Gannon, you realize everyone is working together and it’s really just one big happy family, and it stuck out to me and I wanted to be a part of it.”
“It makes me feel that I can be bigger than myself, be part of something that is more than just me, and help others along the way too.”