From the Heart: An LA Story of Strength + Community

As the wildfires continue to rage in LA, our news headlines and Instagram feeds have been flooded with stories of loss, displacement, and ways to help. I don’t know about you, but as a New Yorker, I have always felt a kinship with Los Angelenos, in part because I have friends, family, and colleagues living there, in part because I think we share more similarities than differences. With hundreds of thousands of individuals impacted by the fires, each one has a unique story to tell. This is just one about how a special community – much like ours – is responding and about a fitness studio founder, who is dear to me and at the heart of this narrative.

In August of 2017, a mother of one of my son’s classmates connected me with her friend’s sister in-law in LA who had recently opened a fitness studio. She was coming to NYC and was interested in taking a Fhitting Room class. The email was only a few sentences and ended with the assertion, “I know that she will love your studio and vice versa!” Copied on the email was Felicia Alexander, Co-Founder of BoxUnion, a studio offering classes centered around boxing to the beat. Through our early email exchanges, Felicia and I uncovered a million parallels that served as the foundation of what became a close personal and professional relationship.

On more than one occasion, I have described Felicia to others by saying, “She’s like a West Coast me.” Felicia and I both worked in corporate America before becoming fitness entrepreneurs. We have sons that are 1 year apart in age. She has 3 BoxUnion studios that for many years mirrored Fhitting Room’s 3 locations. During the pandemic, we became part of the same industry mastermind peer group of studio founders who met virtually every month to learn from and support each other, and coming out of the pandemic, both of our brands became part of larger organizations. BoxUnion acquired Title Boxing Club, and Felicia became their Chief Revenue Officer, while Fhitting Room was acquired by New York Sports Club, where I became Chief Marketing Officer. When you share highs, lows, and everything in between, you become close, and that’s what we’ve been doing…for almost a decade!

As fires raged in LA, Felicia was one of the people who I checked in with daily, and as the fires spread, Felicia and her family had to evacuate. Less than 24 hours later, the home she shared with her husband and son for the past 18 years was nothing but a swimming pool, barbeque, and pile of rubble. In her words, she lost a place so intertwined with their lives, their memories, and their hearts…a way of life. Despite the overwhelming new reality that she faced, Felicia quickly started helping others. She has transformed her Instagram story into housing leads, silver linings, and action-oriented ways to help first responders, evacuees, and those who lost their homes and all the contents, like herself and her business partner. A heartbroken Felicia then posted a beautiful statement of gratitude for the years that she lived in an incredible community that she loved, which you can see here. 

In what felt like an instant, BoxUnion posted this heartfelt message of resilience and hope from Felicia and her business partner prioritizing their community and offering their studios as a place where people can gather, sweat, cry, and heal together. From sharing GoFundMe links, to opening their studio doors for workouts, showers, and retail for those in need, to replacing gloves, and offering classes free of charge for evacuees and first responders + their families, BoxUnion is helping their clients rebuild and rise together. I immediately felt compelled to purchase a 20-pack of classes at BoxUnion to help offset the expenses of helping those for whom a fitness class or a clean shower may be a small oasis among substantial loss and disruption.

I’m sure many of you in our FHIT community have aching hearts for your own friends + family on the West Coast. While there is no shortage of ways to help the ones we love, their communities, and the organizations working tirelessly to provide aid during this time of need, if you’re looking for another way to bring some strength to evacuees and first responders in LA, purchasing just one class can help BoxUnion continue to offer their space as a haven. More than anything, I think we can all appreciate the power and strength created when a fitness community bands together. 

You can view BoxUnion’s website here.