Unfortunately no matter how many times I tried to re-size this image I couldn't fit everyone in it, but was able to include the CECO students in the pic below. By owning a gym I’m destined to never get a raise and to live in the uncertainty of whether or not we’ll have enough revenue to pay the bills each month, but I have the satisfaction of giving back to the community with events like we held today, which is worth so much more. We currently host 3 fundraisers each year. Two of our members: Katrina Silva and Chris Hankins worked at CECO (the Conductive Education Center of Orlando). “CECO offers a special needs school day kindergarten through 12th grade, summer camp, early intervention ages 6 months to 4 years old and walking challenge program. Conductive Education is a unique, holistic educational approach to help children with Cerebral Palsy and other motor disabilities achieve their greatest level of independence through physical and cognitive activities.” Last year Katrina and Chris had the idea to hold a fundraiser for CECO and I was more than happy to do what I could to help. We put together the idea to host a deadlift rep challenge where women would deadlift their body weight and men would deadlift 1.5xs their bodyweight for as many reps as possible with 4 classes: women under 150, women over 150, men under 200 and men over 200. I was happy to be able to participate this year since I was unable to due to my autoimmune issues last year. I usually don’t do more than around 3 reps but today I deadlifted 35 reps with 230 (1.5 xs BW since I’m a super light 155.5). 
We ended up raising over $1,500! Thank you to everyone involved especially Katrina, Chris and Kaveh Albekord with Albekord Inc. for matching donations up to $500 for this event! We hope to continue to grow the event each year. I'll update this post with the names, weights and reps of all of the winners once I know them for sure. We were honored to have three of CECO's students attend the event as well.
