Move For Jenn x Orangetheory Fitness
Andre and his daughter Abigale, both members of Orangetheory Pine Bluffs.
Meet Andre, a Type 1 Diabetic living in Colorado, who the Move For Jenn Foundation met through a connection from Orangetheory Fitness. Buckle up, because this story is amazing!
Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Move For Jenn Foundation, Jenn Andrews, was a dedicated member of the Ballantyne location of Orangetheory Fitness after her amputation. During her time at the studio, Jenn became friends with a number of the OTF staff members, including the Regional Manager, Alysse. When Alysse had the opportunity to move within OTF, she was thrilled to start a new chapter in Colorado. Even though Jenn and Alysse wouldn't be at the same studio anymore, they remained connected through social media and Alysse continued to cheer for Jenn and the foundation from afar.
Fast forward to 2022 when Alysse and Colorado OTF studio owner, Shawn, reached out to Jenn with an incredible opportunity. They shared with Jenn the story of Andre, one of their members.
Andre was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when he was just 18 years old. "About three decades, six children and two professional athletic careers later, Andre faced a traumatic foot injury and infection, which was exacerbated by diabetes. As a result, his right leg was amputated below the knee."
Andre who has always been active, quickly learned about how difficult life as an active amputee can be. While he wanted to remain active playing and coaching basketball as well as working out at OTF, he learned that an appropriate prosthetic for these activities would cost him thousands of dollars out of pocket as it is not deemed "medically necessary" by most insurance companies.
When the members of his Pine Bluffs OTF studio heard about this, they immediately jumped into action looping in their sister location to raise just shy of $16,000! As soon as Andre shared his story, Alysse immediately thought of the Move For Jenn Foundation. She knew that we would be able to assist Andre in ways that their funds alone couldn't. Our motto to "move because you can" also aligned as Orangetheory "exists to give people a longer, more vibrant life." What a duo!
We are so thrilled to be able to give Andre the gift of movement by providing him with an AllPro Activity Foot and Obsidian Running Foot, both from our friends at Fillauer.
While Andre technically falls outside of our mission, we were honored that Alysse and Shawn wanted to include us in this incredible project. They wanted to partner in order to be able to stretch their funds further and make an even bigger impact in addition to helping Andre. Because of their generosity, we were not only able to help fund two prosthetics for Andre, we will be able to use the additional funds they raised to help give a second grant recipient the gift of movement through prosthetics from our current pool of applicants!
As our team works to move through the applications in our pipeline as quickly as possible, we cannot wait to share more about who these additional funds will help.
All of this is made even sweeter by the fact that the Ballantyne location of OTF helped raise funds for Jenn's first activewear prosthetic back in 2018! Check it out here.
Thank you to those who supported Andre through this journey, congratulations to Andre on his new prosthetics, and thank you to OTF studio owner Shawn Johnson, Alysse Scaturro, and the whole team at OTF Pine Bluffs and Parker-Colorado for their partnership!
Sources: Parker Chronicle