Non-profit organization Catch A Lift Fund has provided free gym memberships to more than 2,200 wounded veterans in just six years and has ambitions to expand to cover even more warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lynn Coffland founded Catch A Lift in February 2010 in memory of her brother, Army Cpl. Chris Coffland, who was killed in 2009 on deployment in Afghanistan.
“My brother, who is my best friend in the universe, enlisted in the army one month shy of 42, the maximum volunteer age,” Coffland told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “This was after 9/11. He felt like he wanted to serve, as he was single, didn’t have any children and wanted to defend our country. Through his whole life he was a huge fitness enthusiast, he believed it changed you mentally and physically, and enhanced your life, and your mental spirituality, everything.”
“Since a young kid, he would go to the gym, he would work out, and he would say he was going to catch a lift,” Coffland added. “And everyone — he was an anthropologist, he lived all over the world — and wherever he was, everyone knew what he meant when he said he was going to catch a lift, he was going to go to the gym.”
After Chris Coffland died, Lynn did some research and found that there were no programs offering physical fitness programs to wounded vets. That’s when she decided to step in and fill the gap with Catch A Lift, a program designed to help vets heal mentally and physically.
“Veterans participating in Catch A Lift have shed thousands of pounds, and most find they no longer need many of their old medications,” Coffland said. “They are thriving, healing and saving each other’s lives.”
Aside from gym memberships, CAL also provides in-home exercise equipment and peer help by giving each and every new veteran who signs up a squad leader for accountability and support. Each squad is between four and ten veterans.
From its inception, CAL has also expanded to funding other gym-related activities like boxing and swimming. If you’re stuck at home due to injuries, CAL can provide in-home gym equipment like indoor bicycles or free weights.
“Anything that you would find at a gym, we can provide in your home,” Coffland told TheDCNF.
As soon as a vet joins, they enter the motivation, accountability and peer support (MAPS) program to help make sure they’re following the goals they set for themselves.
Support is important because many vets upon leaving the service live sedentary lifestyles, become obese and take anywhere from five to 15 medications a day from the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system.
“With MAPS, we’ve developed a whole program where veterans receive one-on-one support. Veterans have a person who they can call and who calls them,” Coffland said. “They have nutrition goals, fitness goals and personal goals. Other veterans in the group start to feel a consistency, a camaraderie. They start to see that they themselves can achieve what they thought they couldn’t achieve.”
Veterans have raved about what the program has done for them.
“CAL has helped me in tremendous ways. I have PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injury), and CAL was able to help me get back in the gym,” Jose Gomez, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, said. “Being at the gym for even an hour helps me so much by getting my motivation and spirit up.”
Another Marine vet, Joe De Prisco, said, “CAL provided me a one-of-a-kind top-notch gym membership. I couldn’t have been any happier. Since getting back into the gym three days a week, it’s boosted my energy level back up, cut off pounds and has made me so much happier!”
Due to CAL’s success and popularity, there’s now a long waiting list of veterans hoping to join the program, which CAL is trying its best to alleviate.
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