CONTRIBUTED BY JOELLE YAMADA
**INFORMATION UPDATED JANUARY 2010**
Chasing your child who is running toward the wall with non-washable crayons may seem exhausting, but I’m not sure it actually counts as exercise. Now, the 27 trips up and down the stairs with baskets of clean/dirty clothes, dozens of shoes, blankets and pacifiers MAY count, but it’s sure not much fun. But a smart group of women on Foster may have come up with an answer — a Co-op! Here’s the info:
Our Gunner’s Gym Fitness Co-op (GGFC) room is located in front of the Foster Field House on Camp Foster adjacent to the ladies restroom. The room was built specifically for our co-op children. It opened the end of January 2007.
We are an all volunteer program that promotes physical health as well as mental health for our members. We are a non profit group that is supported (not financially!) by the Marine Corps. Our members trade volunteer time watching children in our COOP facility for the use of Gunners gym during their time slot. These time slots coincide with the group fitness schedule. However, our members are also permitted to use their “gym” time to get a massage, sit in the sauna, or just sit in the lobby and read. Often times the members have a spouse deployed and this is their only down time.
We are currently drawing our new members from a waiting list, but PCS season has left that list fairly thin. We will have several openings in the fall due to some members PSCing and we are also scheduled to have a new facility built for us as well. We will be able to accommodate twice as many members when the project is completed.
We have assigned time slots in our coop. We have limited space and can only accommodate 12 people (one volunteer and up to 11 children) in the room at a time. We allow children 6 weeks to 11 years old. The time slots are as follows:
7:30-9, 9-10:30, 11:15-12:45, 12:45-2:15
If you sign up for a time slot, you then have unlimited use Monday thru Friday during your time slot. In exchange, you are required to volunteer about four times during the month. The volunteer days vary depending on the number of parents in your time slot.
If you are interested, please contact the co-ordinator, Maggie, at okicoop@yahoo.com. She will send you an email with various attached paperwork that needs to be filled out before beginning with the co-op.