NILES — Ring Lardner Middle School will have a new fitness facility at the start of the next school year thanks to a national foundation award and the work of school staff and students.

The National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils awarded three Michigan schools DON’T QUIT Fitness Centers as part of its national campaign to promote health and fitness in schools. The $100,000 centers will be constructed for free, courtesy of the foundation and its private-public partnerships, like TuffStuff Fitness International, which will provide the fitness equipment.

The foundation awards fitness centers to schools that have demonstrated a commitment to health. Health initiatives have been a focus of Ring Lardner’s for about the past three years, said assistant principal Evan Winkler.

“We had the nutrition stuff going on,” he said. “We had the social-emotional learning that we’re doing for our kids, but we didn’t have the physical piece that we wanted. It was kind of the last piece we were looking for.”

Two years ago, Ring Lardner did not even have health instructors, Winkler said. Then, last year, the school received a grant to implement integrated health into their school improvement plan. They also received a Michigan Model for Health plan, creating a health teaching position.

Winkler and principal Adam Burtsfield said that Ring Lardner has since focused on integrating health, and not just in designated health classes and not just in the area of physical fitness.

To help students nutritionally, Van Buren Intermediate School District comes down six times a year to teach students nutritional vales. At the end of each Van Buren class, the students make a healthy snack to take home.

Ring Lardner hosts a March Madness-style cafeteria tournament, where students will rank their favorite fruits and vegetables. This year, strawberries beat out red peppers “in a landslide,” Winkler said.

To help students mentally and emotionally, Ring Lardner teachers are implementing mindfulness in classrooms. Meanwhile, sixth grade students are using a computer program where students are able to self-assess their energy and mood levels. Then, the program recommends activities to do based on the students’ results.

Burtsfield said these programs and others allowed Ring Lardner to have a great application for the DON’T QUIT fitness center award. All that was needed was a video demonstrating why the Niles middle school was the right recipient for the award.

That’s where Burtsfield, Winkler and others turned to students like eighth grader Kierstyn Thompson, seventh grader Annabelle Johnson and sixth grader Jazmine Smith for help.

“Kierstyn was our videographer for the video that we made, so we kind of gave her our ideas, and she kind of said, ‘Well, how about you do it this way and this way and this way?’” Burtsfield said.

Thompson, who likes to make videos for fun and helped Ring Lardner staff create a video to implement a Michigan Model for Health plan, recorded and edited Johnson and Smith. The other students spoke about the health programs they took part in and the health challenges Ring Lardner still faces.

“What we were doing was just talking about the ways that an exercise room could help us, since, in Niles, we don’t have a lot of physical fitness places around our town, and having one at the school would offer kids more of an opportunity to go to work out,” Johnson said.

Smith agreed.

“Not a lot of kids are able to get to the fitness centers we have in Niles,” Smith said. “So, this would be free, and then right in the school.”

The staff and students who worked on the application found out their school was an award recipient in early May. The small group had to keep it a secret for two weeks, but that did not stop them from celebrating.

“The guy called us up, and we had a party in [Burtsfield’s] office, yelling and screaming and high-fiving,” Winkler said.

The fitness center will follow the same basic layout as all other DON’T QUIT fitness centers in schools in other states. The equipment and their placement will allow for circuit training, where users can spend a short time on one piece of equipment, then move on to the next. Aerobic exercise equipment like elliptical machines will also be available.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer and National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils chairman Jake Steinfeld are slated to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony in August. The fitness center will be open for use at the start of the 2019-2020 school year.

Select staff and students will be trained on how to use the facility and its equipment. They will then share that knowledge with students, whether it be in gym classes or a potential after-school club.

“[Studies] show that the more oxygen you get into your brain, the more stuff you’ll remember, and you’ll be able to focus better in class, usually,” Winkler said. “So, we’re hoping that fitness center will help see more of that.”

Atherton Elementary in Burton, Lincoln Park Middle School in Lincoln Park were the other two Michigan schools to receive the award.