Group donates exercise equipment to Pct. 1

For the past few months, Norma Zavala has been getting a workout and has lost a few pounds.

The 28-year-old Brownsville woman has joined other women in rural Cameron County for morning exercise workouts at the Cameron County Social Services Center on Browne Road.

The women are exercising to workout videos supplied to them at the center and soon they will be using exercise mats, resistance cords, an exercise bike and elliptical machine.

The exercise equipment is made possible by Cameron Willacy County Medical Alliance-North, a volunteer organization that donated $1,000 to the service center. The medical alliance is made up of some 60 wives of medical doctors.

"I am very appreciative that the center is offering the classes. I am happy that this organization is donating the equipment for our benefit," Zavala said.

The alliance's goal is to promote healthy communities. One of its main initiatives is to bring awareness to diabetes, said Janine Deal, president of the alliance.

This is why the alliance chose to donate money to the service center since this is what its officials at the social services center are trying to do, Deal said.

"(Diabetes is) on the rise in the Valley and that is how we are able to get grants" to promote diabetes awareness, Deal said.

Cameron County Precinct 1 Commissioner Sofia C. Benavides, whose husband, Pete, died in 2006 from complications brought on by diabetes, has been pushing diabetes awareness ever since.

"It was an eye opener for us," Sofia C. Benavides said about the severity of her husband's diabetes.

Benavides went before alliance members in search of funding for the prevention program and was pleasantly surprised by the large donation.

On Thursday, Benavides and Deal went to the Academy Store on U.S. Expressway 77/83 and purchased everything from exercise mats to basketballs to tetherballs.

The exercise equipment will be available to both adults and children who visit the center.

"Dads and boys can come and play basketball or soft ball...I think it's great," Deal said.