Xtreme Athletics raising funds for Children’s of Alabama

Published 9:26 pm Thursday, December 19, 2019

Just how many push-ups can you do?

That’s a fair question for the members of the Xtreme Athletics Gymnastics team who will be participating in a skill-a-thon fundraiser today in Downtown Troy.

“We wanted to do something for Children’s of Alabama, and in talking with the team members parents, we decided this would be a good way to raise money and get the girls involved,” said Paul Diaz, team coach.

Members of the team have been collecting pledges and donations for a couple of weeks and will be on the Square from 12:30 to 5 p.m. today working through a series of skills – from push-ups to situps to cartwheels.

“And we’re still inviting members of the public to come out and make a donation, a pledge or a challenge,” Diaz said, explaining that supporters can pledge “a dollar a push up or a quarter a sit-up or something like that.”

Of course, there’s also the challenge aspect. “You can challenge the girls, too,” he said. “For example, you can say ‘if you can do x amount of pushups, I’ll donate x dollars.’”

All proceeds from the event will be donated to Children’s of Alabama. “It’s close to me because I actually went to Children’s as a child,” Diaz said. “I broke my leg and they had to put a rod in to help it heal. They put the rod in at Children’s and a year later took it out at Children’s.”

Anyone wanting more information or to support the Xtreme gymnasts can join them on the Square today.

“We’ll be out there,” Diaz said.