Teacher and volleyball coach Nancy Hopkins is building Free State a cardio fitness center that is quickly packing on the pounds in exercise equipment.

“When the school was built, we had a weight room facility, but no cardio fitness equipment,” Hopkins said. “I felt like there was a need for that because so many kids are overweight and out of shape, and if it’s a facility that can be used by kids like a membership at a gym, except without a fee, then it would be something that would be beneficial to every kid in the building rather than just the athletes or the PE kids.”
   

The room, located next to the weights room on the second floor, already holds several pieces of equipment, and Hopkins hopes to add 12 to 15 more after raising funds with a silent auction boasting hundreds of items donated by celebrities.     

“Sometimes during practice we’ll go up there and work on the bikes,” said junior volleyball player Mariah Dickson.  “It’s really good for us, and it’s a lot of fun.“

Junior Jordan Platt, who is enrolled in Hopkins’s Individual Fitness and Wellness course, said that students frequently use treadmills in addition to bikes.

“They get tired every once in a while, but I think the more they do it, the more they like it,” Platt said.   

In 2010, Hopkins won a silver medal from the United States Anti-Doping Agency for her efforts in developing this program. She has so far collected about $45,000 worth of equipment and is working to raise another $50,000 to $70,000 to complete the room.

She began raising money by asking parents of her former volleyball players for small contributions, and she sought out as many donations as possible.  Soon, however, a past experience inspired her to experiment with a new fundraiser.

 “About 25 years ago, when I was at West Junior High, I did a project in which I wrote to celebrities and asked them to send me autographed pictures and letters about their views on drugs and steroids,” she explained.  

Hopkins decided to use this same strategy for the cardiovascular fitness program, but this time “on a bigger scale.”  She plans to hold a silent auction featuring the hundreds of items she has received from celebrities all over the world.

“The very first thing I got back came about a month after I started sending letters,” she said. She could barely contain her excitement when she opened the package to discover a photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, autographed by Ono, along with an engraved iPod.

Soon an almost continuous stream of packages was arriving at the school–an autographed drum head from Bruce Springsteen, a signed die-cast car from Clint Bowyer, four VIP tickets to the taping of Dr. Phil, and nearly an entire library of books, to name a few.

“I have over 400 autographed books,” she said.  “And it’s all for my auction.”

Hopkins hopes to schedule the auction sometime in late April, but she is currently in need of a volunteer.

“I really need somebody who knows something about [auctions] to try to help me figure out how to market what I’m doing, because I have so much stuff I’m kind of overwhelmed.”

Her hard work does not go unappreciated.

“I know she keeps sending letters to people, asking them to donate money and stuff to it,” said Dickson.  “We’re really lucky to have ‘Hops’ doing that for us.”