This week, PGN is launching Weigh It Forward, a weight-loss fundraiser. Conceived by Franny Price, executive director of Philly Pride Presents, the project will raise money for Philly Pride, The Attic Youth Center and the William Way LGBT Community Center.
Between now and Pride Day, June 10, four individuals will lose weight. For every pound they shed, community members can pledge to donate a minimum of 50 cents per pound (or a flat amount). This week, PGN has included a photo of each person and his or her starting weight. At Pride, the four participants will weigh in — on stage.
This is going to be hard work for the participants: Franny, Dan Calhoun, Debbie Spadafora and Micah Mahjoubian. Each is known in the community, and this is a very public way of facing their weight and making a commitment to lose some of it, to eat better, to exercise — and to raise money for LGBT nonprofits.
They will have help. Franny will work with Jo-Ellen Marks from Optimal Sport Health Clubs; Dan will work with Jared Carter from Move Forward Fitness; Debbie will work with Noe Espinoza from 12th Street Gym and Micah will work with Gavin McKay from Fusion Cross-Training. They’ll receive fitness, health and nutrition coaching; some will receive medical assessments too.
As a community, we need to support and encourage them as well. Making good choices — whether it’s food or fitness or health — is a conscious effort, and one many of us, this editor included, could do better at. (I’ll be working on my eating habits and am going to give Fusion a try. What are you doing?)
If we let these folks down, the community loses out too. So, let’s offer support, both in pledges and applauding their good choices.
Franny, Dan, Debbie and Micah have already taken a big step toward better health by participating in this. Their names and faces will be out there, they have agreed to put in the work. They’ve gone public with their weight. They’ve already shown strength by doing that much.
Over the next five months, they’ll need more strength — and they’ll build it.
While none of us has experienced another’s life journey — we don’t know what others have faced and why they made the choices they have — each of us can have empathy for where someone is now and the work he or she is doing. Regardless of how a person got to his or her present place, the mere fact that these four individuals have put themselves forward deserves our respect.
We got your back.