Local mom wins money to build ninja warrior course

PALMER — Before the start of the 2018-19 school year, Machetanz Elementary will become the proud new home of an outdoor ninja warrior course thanks to the effort and enthusiasm of a Palmer mom and Beachbody coach.

Last November, the fitness program Beachbody was launching Double Time, a home-based regiment designed for families and partners who want to work out together.

To help promote the program in a way that gave back to communities they started a competition to give away donations to the school or charity of the competitor’s choice. The total of $180,000 was divided between the top eight coaches who sold the most challenge packs within their community.

“So it kind of inspired me, like I want to do this impact for the kids and how cool would that be for us to win some of this money,” said Jessica Larson, a Beachbody coach.

So Larson began posting fliers around town and posting to social media and even got on the local radio station, Classic Country 100.9, to convince people to get on board with a program that she had been so personally impacted by.

After the month was over Larson found herself at the top of the leader board with $50,000, which she gave to Machetanz Elementary, the school her daughter goes to.

“I still get goosebumps thinking that I won this because I was competing against the entire United States, Canada and the UK were part of it, and me this new coach of this company won this money, which is just amazing,” she said.

In return, the school chose to use the donation to further the healthy lifestyle of its students by building a ninja warrior course that will resemble the setup from the television show “American Ninja Warrior.” However, nothing about the course will involve water.

“As a whole school philosophy, we believe that healthier kids learn better, and so we want them to stay physically active, we want them to find new pieces of equipment out there,” Machetanz physical education teacher Christa Hayes said.

The course will stay up throughout the whole year, allowing it to be used by all students. Hayes said she likes the idea because of its uniquely challenging nature and the fact that it is something new and exciting for students to do on the field.

Machetanz Elementary is redoing the field outside of the school over the summer, which will go along with the building of the new project. Groundbreaking should start in mid July and finish before the students come back to school, according to principal Jennifer Dowd.

Katie Stark is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to the Frontiersman.