Netawaka fitness center continues to thrive
“A place like this does not exist anywhere else in the country, under the circumstances.”
That’s how Scott Steffes describes the uniqueness that the Netawaka Family Fitness Center provides in a northern Jackson County community of less than 150 — a full-service, 30,000-square-foot fitness center with an 8,000-square foot indoor pool, modern exercise equipment, a full-sized indoor basketball court and areas for community gatherings and workouts.
What’s even more amazing to Steffes and the people of northeastern Kansas who utilize the facility is that it’s still going strong after more than a decade — and remember, that’s a decade that saw a pandemic disrupting life for everyone, whether they live in a town like Netawaka or a city hundreds of times its size.
“This facility has come through a lot. A whole lot,” says Steffes, who has been the general manager of Netawaka Family Fitness Center for 10 years. “And for it to still be here to this day, that’s just a testament to the wonderful people who come here.”
Now, the center — which has been operating as a non-profit facility since it opened in September of 2013 — is in the midst of raising funds for internal improvements, including upgraded HVAC equipment to provide comfort to members during extreme heat and cold and protect the pool area, insulation improvements and new doors that Steffes estimated in the neighborhood of $75,000.
“When you’re a non-profit with no ownership and no benefactor, and when you live out here in a rural area with no proximity to a major city, it’s tough,” Steffes said of efforts to raise the funds to make those improvements. But there have been some fund-raising efforts, such as the center’s participation in the Jackson County Community Foundation’s annual Thoughtful Giving Day event.
The facility has grown from an idea that a community like Netawaka and its members could support a facility that was originally thought would be half its present 30,000-square-foot size into a state-of-the-art facility that Steffes said currently serves a membership of more than 1,000 that covers about a 40-mile radius from Netawaka.
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