This rural Pa. county has no public gym. A retired banker has a $20M plan.
Rural areas, traditionally, have fewer health and wellness facilities and experts believe that affects obesity rates there.
LAPORTE, Pa. — Up an old logging road, deep into the forest, Mary Blondy envisions a doorway amid the boulders, ferns, and fallen leaves.
Some fluorescent tape and surveyor flags break up the browns and greens of the woods on this cold November afternoon. They mark out the future location of The Summit Wellness Center, spots where the windows and doorway will be, along with the meeting space and weight rooms. There will be an indoor track, treehouse, a much-needed swimming pool, and hiking trails. A nearby rock ledge, which runs through the property like a spine, will be an outdoor classroom or amphitheater.
“It’s so beautiful when you can see it without the leaves,” Blondy said beneath the ridge. “I have to take a picture.”
Construction of The Summit will cost around $20 million, in two phases, and will take approximately five years to complete. The land has already been acquired. Blondy, and several other longtime, local volunteers, have solicited donations far and wide — from church groups, county government, health-care providers — and they’re willing to talk to anyone who might help. When finished, The Summit will be the only public place to work out and swim in Sullivan County, one of Pennsylvania’s most rural and least populated areas.
“I would be so excited to see it,” said Sue Mullen, 62, president of the Sullivan County Recreation Association. “I’ve been working on this since my kids were little.”
Rural America is blessed with unique outdoor recreation opportunities and in Pennsylvania, Sullivan County has some of the state’s best hiking trails, state parks, and opportunities for road and gravel biking. People often move there or purchase second homes, because there are so few people: The county population dropped from 6,428 to 5,868 between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census.
That low population density, however, is why large cable and Internet providers or chain retailers, like gyms, often won’t come in.
Rural exercise deserts are more than an inconvenience, too. Obesity rates for adults living in rural areas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are nearly 20% higher than in “metropolitan counties.” According to the Rural Health Information Hub, a site supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “rural health-care facilities are less likely to have nutritionists, dietitians, or weight management experts available. Rural areas may lack exercise facilities and infrastructure to encourage physical activity.”
More than a quarter of Sullivan County’s residents were over the age of 65, according to a Penn State-Harrisburg population study from 2010 to 2017. Danielle Rhubart, an assistant professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, said a wellness center, like The Summit, can help on a very practical level by helping elderly residents get their heart rates up. As a sociologist, Rhubart is also interested in how a wellness center can reconnect rural communities.
“They give older adults a place to run into neighbors and friends, to meet, gather and connect,” Rhubart said. “I call it social infrastructure.”
Blondy, who grew up in Shunk, Sullivan County, said the groundwork for an indoor fitness center and swimming pool began with the creation of the Sullivan County Recreation Association in 2006, long before she got involved. Mullen, the association’s president, said the biggest obstacle, for the last 15 years has always been money.
“We’ve done small projects within the county like building up parks and fields,” she said. “We were doing that while we were trying to reach our goal, but we’re talking millions of dollars in a county of about 6,000 people. We’re so small and we just always got overlooked for funding. That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve it.”
Mullen operated a gym, briefly, in Dushore called Body Concepts by Sue in the 1980s.
“I was teaching aerobics about 5, 6 days a week, but it just wasn’t profitable,” she said of her long-closed gym.
Frank Comfort, another early proponent of an indoor facility, grew up in Harrisburg and now lives in Eagles Mere, Sullivan County. He spent 30 years as head swim coach at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Now retired, Comfort drives about 35 miles one way to swim at a YMCA in a neighboring county. He helps out with the basketball team at Sullivan County Area High School in Laporte.
“Oh heavens no. There’s no swim team,” he said.
Comfort said thousands of children, including Blondy, learned to swim in the backyard pool of a Dushore couple’s home. Aside from rivers and lakes, there was no other place to swim.
While Blondy is eager to deflect credit for the project, Comfort and Mullen said she’s been the catalyst for turning a dream into blueprints and stakes in the ground.
“Mary is an unstoppable force,” Comfort said.
Blondy, an avid swimmer and hiker, founded The Loyalsock Foundation in 2019 as a nonprofit that would help secure grants, endowments, and donations to purchase the land and plan and build The Summit. She’s retired from the banking industry and admits she’s very “detail oriented.”
“I love spreadsheets,” she said.
Blondy is seeking state and federal grants and made pitches to every elected official and organization that will listen. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey met with Blondy in August and told The Inquirer The Summit would be “more than a gym.”
“I saw the potential of this hub, not only as a health center, but as a boost for the entire economy of Sullivan County,” Casey said in a statement.
The Summit will have varying monthly fees for seniors, individuals, and families, and Blondy hopes summer residents will be interested in seasonal passes. She said the Loyalsock Foundation is also seeking an additional $10 million endowment to ensure the Summit’s operation costs.
As the sun sank lower, Donna Iannone, a Sullivan County commissioner, hiked down a trail from the nearby high school to meet Blondy on the 70-acre site. Iannone said The Summit would be a game changer that wouldn’t change the face of the county.
Iannone, a cyclist who’s courted large races to Sullivan County, said she’s eager for the pool to be built.
“I’ve got my sights set on a half-Ironman,” she said. “But I need to tune up my swimming.”