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By NATHAN HOWELL | Special to the Reporter

HELENA – Blake Matthews, owner of CrossFit Furious, has created a physical education class to address the physical activity that students attending school virtually or on a staggered basis will experience this school year.

The classes, which start Aug. 17, will be open to students in grades kindergarten through fifth, and will follow the county’s school schedule by splitting up students by last names for hour and a half classes on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

“The main reason that I wanted to do this is because with schools being online or having a staggered schedule, the students are not going to be getting a lot of physical activity,” Matthews explained. “With this program it’ll give the kids at least two extra days of activity.”

Students who are signed up for the classes will get to participate in a wide variety of activities including dodgeball, kickball, basketball, roller skating, Pickleball, soccer and others. Offering these will encourage children to stay physically active despite being at home more often.

“I have worked with kids for almost 10 years now and it is one of my passions to give them some kind of activity to keep them healthy,” Matthews said. “When kids are at home with nothing to do, they will usually be sitting in front of the TV playing video games, and they need some kind of physical activity to stay healthy.”

Matthews said that having such a large open facility will allow the children to be able to get the activity they need, while also maintaining safe social distancing while also having hand sanitizer available. The gym staff has also been diligently cleaning and sanitizing the facility and will continue to do so to ensure the safety of the staff and the children.

The classes are broken up by last names with K-Z names on Monday and Tuesday and A-J names on Thursday and Friday. Grades kindergarten through second will meet from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., and grades third through fifth will meet from 1-2:30 p.m.

The cost for the class is $20 and children can be enrolled by calling CrossFit Furious at 205-564-8089 or by email at crossfitfurious@yahoo.com.