Kids beam as they pause to pose while enjoying their play at the new community gym facility in Palomas
Border Partners has orchestrated the opening of a public gym in Palomas. The gym has already opened for recreational use of the town’s residents.
Palomas boasts two large gyms, both of them are located at public schools. Until this summer, due to their locations, the two existing gyms were used only by school students, and only when school was in session. Outside of these two school gym facilities, there’s no other indoor recreational space in the town.
Handwritten sign welcomes all: “Gym is open to the general public Friday to Sunday from 7-9 PM. We look forward to you coming!”
One of the two existing gyms is located at an elementary school that was open to listen to our proposal. Border Partners offered to fence off the classroom section of the school, separating it from the gymnasium. This would make the school inaccessible from the gym. Thus separated, townspeople could use the gym facility without any possibility of infringing on the public school’s educational facilities.
School officials agreed, and we had the go-ahead to enact our plan. Now, when the gym is open, people are able to use the sports facility and cannot enter the school. This opens up, for the first time, a publicly-accessible indoor sports facility in Palomas.
The basketball hoops in the gymnasium needed repair and the school had no other equipment. So, Border Partners bought volleyballs and nets, basketballs, hula hoops and other sports equipment for children’s active games. We also restored the bathroom facilities. Now the gym is open for general use!
Once again, we acknowledge the HEAL grant from Paso del Norte Health Foundation and other generous donors who provide the funding that allows us to produce forward movement in Palomas. Making sports facilities available to the public encourages healthy activity that will counter medical concerns that are prevalent in Mexico, notably hypertension and diabetes.