This story is a part of a five-part collection on the J’s renovation undertaking and the donors which can be making it attainable.
Group members who go to the Evelyn Rubenstein JCC’s new Theba and Buster Feldman Health Heart will discover a big, open and welcoming house for weight coaching, cardio and sundown yoga on a patio overlooking the J’s new household recreation pool and out of doors lap pool.
A part of the J’s ongoing renovation – a multi-year undertaking to modernize its health middle – the Theba and Buster Feldman Health Heart will probably be housed contained in the Boniuk Household Well being and Wellness Heart on the third ground of a brand new, elevated three-story, Group Pavilion. The facilities will embody greater than 15,000 sq. ft of devoted house for group train, meditation, biking, weight coaching and socializing.
“We’re constructing a health middle the place individuals stroll in and so they say, ‘Wow, I actually need to work out right here and be part of the neighborhood,’” mentioned Robin Fortenberry, the J’s director of health.
The Theba and Buster Feldman Health Heart will embody cardio gear, free weights and purposeful coaching house. Health middle members can create their very own exercises and circuits and work with private trainers utilizing a purposeful coaching body, and gear, like ropes, sandbags, slam balls, punching baggage and kettle bells.
“You possibly can create your personal number of exercises to combine and match,” Fortenberry mentioned. “You’re capable of work your complete physique in a purposeful manner.”
The middle’s 1,600-square-foot out of doors deck is one other massive house for train, yoga or meditation, or to sit down and consider the J’s new state-of-the-art aquatics complicated.
The health middle is made attainable by a donation from Theba and Buster Feldman, longtime members of the J and supporters of the native Jewish neighborhood. A previous J president and board of administrators’ member, Theba, 87, was born in Houston and takes satisfaction in her household’s lifelong participation in J programming and occasions.
Theba and Buster enrolled all three of their youngsters, Lori, Stuart and Howard, in courses and day camp on the J. Lori Feldman remembers strolling to the J on Fridays after college at Kolter Elementary within the Nineteen Sixties, to work on arts and crafts with different neighborhood ladies. She then despatched her personal youngsters, Justin and Missy, to Bertha Alyce Early Childhood Faculty and day camp within the summers.
“The JCC is simply particular to all of us,” mentioned Lori. “I used to be all the time doing one thing there – artwork, theater, ballet – it was an enormous a part of rising up and for my youngsters, too.”
Health additionally has lengthy been part of Theba’s and Buster’s lives. For a interval, Theba labored as a forest ranger in Aspen, and collectively the couple loved biking, mountaineering, snowboarding and tennis. Buster was nonetheless downhill snowboarding into his 80s, earlier than he grew to become sick and handed away final 12 months. Theba additionally skied nicely into her 80s. She coordinated and chaired the first-ever Senior Olympics on the J in 1989, and she or he as soon as was deemed the J’s 30-minute stair climbing-Stairmaster champion within the age 50-59 class.
“Health has all the time been a extremely large a part of their lives and really significant to them,” Lori mentioned. “They needed their legacy to be the JCC.”
The Theba and Buster Feldman Health Heart is slated to open in fall 2022, together with the Boniuk Household Well being and Wellness Heart and the Group Pavilion. The J’s present predominant constructing is also getting a contemporary makeover as a part of the renovations, making the J a totally accessible campus and giving it one centralized entrance, deliberate for the positioning of the present health constructing.
The renovation undertaking goals to make sure the J stays a vibrant hub of the Jewish neighborhood for generations to come back. Till renovations are full, the J’s basketball courtroom is serving as a brief train house.
Go to ournewJ.org for updates on the renovation. Discover the J on Fb, Instagram and Twitter.
Deborah Lynn Blumberg is a contract author.
