Impact Gymnastics Academy, a premier gymnastics and fitness center in central Phoenix, knows how to be flexible. That’s why in August, it pivoted to offering study camps to assist parents and children alike.
The Impact study camp model allows students to learn in a safe and structured environment and provides parents with a worry-free workday.
Parents can sign up their children ages kindergarten and up for a full-day or half-day session and can choose between two, three or five days per week. Along with advisement from Impact staff, attendees can enjoy supervised fitness breaks.
Impact typically hosts birthday parties, camps and clinics throughout the year, but it lost nearly half of its client base due to the pandemic.
“We’ve lost over 60 percent of our monthly income because we can’t operate birthday parties, group functions, clinics, things like that and we are struggling to keep our doors open,” Impact’s co-owner Maria Lawrence says.
Impact put procedures in place to keep staff and students safe, such as following CDC guidelines, enforcing temperature checks upon arrival and requiring face coverings when not engaged in physical activities. Students are also not allowed to share school supplies.
As a working mother herself, Lawrence had struggles of her own when the school year started.
“Working from home while my kids are at home doing school, there are interruptions, the bandwidth on the internet is also a challenge and my kids are really unhappy,” she says. “They just want to get to school and it’s hard sitting in front of the computer five or six hours a day. It’s hard keeping them on task.”
Impact’s study camps are a great solution, she says, because it allows kids to have that social component of school while still remaining 6 feet apart.
“The kids love it,” Lawrence says. And parents will love the price tag – Impact’s study camp costs less than $5 an hour.
“This is a great alternative for parents who need it, plus, we are able to provide their kids with a better quality of online learning than they saw in spring along with providing lots of physical fitness,” Lawrence says.
