As far as introductions to a new city go, one could hardly do better than the acquaintance of Cindy Edwards.  Or so her now husband Brant Brantman must have felt when he arrived in Sitka in 1998. Vibrant and welcoming, Cindy cheerfully greeted early morning exercisers in-between sentences during our 6:30am interview. In 1998, the ferry was tying up in Sitka when she spotted Brant sitting with a book on Sitka and a variety of maps about him. She said, "I told him 'Oh, you should go to Medvejie,' and before we knew it, we were doing it together."

Recreation is not the only thing Brant and Cindy have been doing together. For the past two years, this powerhouse couple has been critical to the salvation of the Sitka community's gym. After Sheldon Jackson College closed in 2007, the Hames Center was turned over to the City. The City never intended to be the full time solution, but they gave the community a year to come up with a plan to save the gym. Then they extended it another year. When a bond issue narrowly lost, the city gave up the venture. Faced with the boarded up building in October 2010, Brant began working with the Hames Task Force pursuing community title to the building. Around the same time, plans emerged to turn the rest of the Sheldon Jackson Campus over to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. It was resolved that the Hames Center would be included in this turnover and as a program of SFAC, putting the property into the hands of the community.

Brant said, "The biggest surprise and satisfaction was that all we really needed to do was put out the word: 'who is interested in making Hames happen?' We all could do this as a community; we don't need to wait for it to be done for us." At the core of the project were Brant, Cindy, Grace Brooks and Brian McNitt. This incredible team was soon joined by thirty other enthusiasts. Once a plan was in play, each of these individuals brought a few more and before they knew it, a hundred community members were ready to go. Brant believes that the volunteer restoration effort was so successful "partially because people were so excited about seeing transformation on the campus and this happened to be the first thing that was happening, and partially because this place means a lot to a lot of people." The gym's closure from October 2010 through January 2011 was more than enough time for Sitka residents to feel its absence in their lives. The community needed a space to exercise and play during the dark and wet of a southeast Alaska winter. And they were willing to do the dirty work to make such a space a reality.

All corners of Sitka turned out to scrape and paint and pick plywood off of the floors and clean twenty years of grime out of their building. Cindy said, "Huge groups of people were flying through this building. The team worked around the clock in order to open the gym to the public on the very day that SFAC took title. I'm not sure any of us left the building much that month," said Cindy. "I remember sleeping on the couch in the office and Becky Martello bringing us moose stew."

When asked how it felt to take on a volunteer role as more than a full time job, Cindy replied, "I didn't think about it much. I think when you see how many people feel the need for it in your community and you can see how it is survival for people, it doesn't matter. It's a lot easier when the need is so huge and there are so many people jumping on board and doing a chunk of it." The gym successfully re-opened in February 2011, but volunteers have continued to be at the heart of operations. Over 200 volunteer hours are put in per week, and the total hours put into the gym is over 11,000. It is this commitment from the community that has allowed the Hames Center to be financially sustainable. The majority of gyms are run on tax dollars or for profit. The Hames Center has succeeded in holding the cost of monthly and annual membership to what it was when previously subsidized by tax dollars. The Center has around 500 members, and we are not aware of a time in its history that there has been more.

The Hames Center recently hired Phyllis Hackett as director, taking significant weight off of the all-volunteer Hames Advisory Team. Phyllis will be working with Manager Carrie Johnson, as well as Hames' new Americorps Jason Labrado, to move the center further in its development. Volunteers will still be at the heart of the Hames Center, as will the philosophy of teamwork and community ownership that has made the gym so unique. Cindy and Brant insist that they are only part of chapter one of the gym's story, but as they speak of the future developments, it is evident that they will continue to play an active role, though perhaps not the 40 hours per week that they have each been volunteering.

Brant paused at the end of our interview, and asked "Did Cindy tell you the story of when we bumped the volleyball?" After meeting at the ferry terminal, their initial plans to go hiking got rained out. Cindy invited him to the gym to pass a volleyball back and forth. Brant said, "I didn't expect much, but it turns out that this gym is where I fell in love with Cindy. Because bumping that volleyball, she could not only take as hard a hit as I could deliver, but she could put it right back at me. And I thought 'wow, this is one strong woman.'" Brant still looks back on that time sometimes when they play volleyball together. He looks around the gym and considers the irony of how the place became their life years later.