news@nfchq.com
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Georgetown, MA is a MIIA Health Benefits Trust member that used a combination of the NFC and BCBSMA grant, and their MIIA Annual Wellness Dollars to bring a intergenerational Fitness Court to their community.
When the idea of a Fitness Court first reached Georgetown's Assistant Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco, his first move was to do his due diligence and visit an existing NFC partner’s Fitness Court.
He’d heard about the Fitness Court in Burlington, which had been sponsored by a local health system, so he drove out to see it in person.
"I said, I want to get a feel for what I'm looking at. It all sounds good, but I want a visual," he recalled. He walked around it, took it in, and said to himself, “this is pretty cool.”
That visit set everything else in motion. But what makes Georgetown's story worth telling is their deliberate decision making process including community support, how they pulled together the funding, who they envisioned using it and how that informed the location they selected.
Figuring out the funding
The initial conversation with the National Fitness Campaign opened a door, but it also opened a budget question. A project like this required real planning, not just enthusiasm.
What made that financial picture work was layering multiple funding sources together. The NFC partnership came with grant support through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. On top of that, Georgetown was able to apply their MIIA Annual Wellness Dollars toward the project. Members of MIIA’s Health Benefits Trust have the opportunity to apply for additional funding specifically for NFC’s Fitness Court projects, in addition to their MIIA Annual Wellness Dollars and the NFC grant to significantly reduce the local cost of a project.
The Georgetown Athletic Association, the nonprofit that runs youth recreation programs in town, came in as a sponsor as well, drawn in by a desire to connect younger residents to the new amenity. The remaining gap was filled through Georgetown's Community Preservation Committee, whose recreational funds are brought before and voted on directly by the community at their Annual Town Meeting.
"These things have had community support, and it's helpful when they do," Orlando noted.
Importance of site selection
Orlando described his thought process simply:
"How do we position the Fitness Court so it gets the maximum amount of exposure? The best way to do that was putting it in a place where people would be able to see it and use it year-round, but also make it intergenerational."
The site they chose sits at a point where several different populations of residents naturally converge: the Council on Aging, the town’s rail trail and High School are all conveniently nearby. This thoughtful positioning has led to over 3,400 uses in a short amount of time.
"Think about locations and how you want this integrated with other things you do in the community," Orlando said. "It's great to have a standalone Fitness Court. But it's also important to think about how you want to take this asset and embed it into other things you do now or may want to do in the future."
The deliberate positioning has created an intergenerational wellness hub that even the town did not entirely anticipate. Seniors connected to the Council on Aging were among the first to discover the Fitness Court and among the first to download the app, reaching out to the town on their own to ask about the digital programming. It was organic adoption, driven not by a formal class or a scheduled event but by curiosity and proximity. The proximity to the rail trail meant that citizens out for a walk or a bike ride might stop and use a few stations before continuing on their way. This adds bodyweight strength training into their existing cardio efforts, rounding out their fitness routine. Even the Georgetown High School baseball team has been training at the Fitness Court regularly. Since their field is so close by, it’s a convenient addition to their training program. Did we mention they recently won the State Championship?!
Citizens driving change
Sometimes the most important champion for a project is someone you never saw coming. For Georgetown, that person was a member of the Georgetown Athletic Association who came across a Fitness Court in another community while vacationing. His excitement helped create internal support and even a sponsorship from the GAA.
"If you build it, they will come," Orlando recalled his colleague saying. "The benefits are real."
What comes next
A year into their partnership, Georgetown has seen a lot of organic engagement from individuals using the Fitness Court and plans to work with their High School Physical Education Program and Council on Aging to add structured programming for the various groups the facility was intended to serve.
But what Georgetown has already built is significant: a well-placed, well-funded, community-supported , intergenerational wellness hub that is finding its own users, generating its own word of mouth, and quietly becoming part of how residents move through their town. That is a foundation for sustained community engagement and health impact.
A note for MIIA Health Benefits Trust Members
Georgetown's project is a working example of what becomes possible when a community uses its available resources thoughtfully. NFC has a partnership with the MIIA Health Trust Benefits program to offer five $20,000 grants specifically for NFC Fitness Courts. Member communities can apply for that grant in addition to the NFC Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts grant program, as well as use their MIIA Annual Wellness Dollars towards the Fitness Court project.
This funding stack can easily make an NFC Fitness Court a financially realistic project for towns of many different sizes and budgets. Georgetown did it carefully and deliberately, and the result is an amenity that the community voted to support and continues to discover on its own terms.
