Community Fitness Pods Open in Hawke’s Bay to Tackle Exercise Inequity

Free exercise facilities have opened in two Hawke’s Bay communities as a charitable initiative backed by CityFitness seeks to remove the financial and practical barriers preventing some whānau from staying active.

The Meke Foundation has established new community fitness pods at Kirkpatrick Park in Camberley and Flaxmere Park, where local trainers will deliver group workouts without membership fees. The openings took place on 2 and 3 October 2026 respectively.

The kaupapa Māori organisation is using the project to widen access to exercise while creating opportunities to reconnect young people who have disengaged from education. The initiative has also featured in coverage by RNZ.

New Zealand’s largest gym chain, CityFitness, has committed to funding three pods at around $65,000 each, with the possibility of backing additional locations as the programme develops.

Free Community Fitness Classes Close to Home

The facilities are adapted shipping containers stocked with exercise equipment that can be brought outdoors for supervised Patu circuit-training sessions. The free community fitness programme provides three sessions a day, five days a week, with activities open to rangatahi, whānau and other residents.

The community fitness model is designed for neighbourhoods where transport difficulties, gym costs and limited access to conventional facilities can discourage regular participation. Patu combines physical training with a focus on wellbeing, belonging and relationships within the community.

The need is reflected in the Ministry of Health’s Health and Independence Report 2024. Its figures show 42% of adults in the most socioeconomically deprived areas met recommended activity levels, compared with 52% in the least deprived neighbourhoods.

Meke Foundation co-founder Levi Armstrong says the aim is to make programmes accessible to people who are not being reached by existing services.

“If you want to reach people who aren’t engaging with the systems that already exist, sometimes you have to take the service to them.”

Fitness Used to Reconnect Rangatahi With Education

The pods build on work already undertaken through Meke Academy, which supports young people for whom mainstream schooling has not been successful. The foundation uses fitness to establish trust and provide a route into training, qualifications and employment.

Armstrong and his wife Dana founded the organisation around education, health, culture and wellbeing, particularly for young people facing social or economic disadvantages.

The academy received $1.5 million over three years from the Government’s Proceeds of Crime Fund to extend its support for high-risk rangatahi in Hawke’s Bay. The funding is intended to help reduce offending and drug use, strengthen literacy and numeracy and improve access to qualifications.

Armstrong says community fitness is a starting point for developing relationships with young people who may be reluctant to engage with traditional institutions.

“It might be getting back into education, gaining qualifications, moving into employment or simply making better decisions about where their life is heading.”

Local Trainers Central to Community-Led Model

Rather than relying on instructors brought in from elsewhere, the foundation recruits and develops trainers from the neighbourhoods it serves. It is working with the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) on training and developing micro-credentials for prospective fitness instructors.

Armstrong says familiar faces are particularly important when dealing with rangatahi who have had difficult experiences at school or with other institutions. Giving local trainers leadership roles is also intended to build community ownership of the facilities.

“The trainers are people from their own communities. They know the whānau, they understand the environment and they can become role models for those young people. We want to build their mana and give communities the ability to lead this themselves,”

The foundation intends the community fitness sessions to serve a broad cross-section of residents, not only young people taking part in its academy programmes.

Research to Examine Wider Social and Economic Benefits

Armstrong is undertaking a PhD at Massey University investigating how community-led initiatives can influence hauora, identity, educational participation and broader social outcomes for rangatahi.

His research draws on his upbringing in a low socioeconomic household and the foundation’s experience of delivering programmes in Hawke’s Bay. The growing community fitness network is expected to provide further evidence about the possible effects on employment, education and wellbeing, as well as the economic value of expanding the model.

Armstrong says the work is intended to measure more than the number of people attending exercise classes.

“We want to be able to demonstrate what happens when communities are given the tools and support to create their own solutions. It is not just about participation numbers. We want to understand the impact on education, employment, wellbeing and the wider community, and what that means economically as well,”

CityFitness Backing Could Support Nationwide Expansion

CityFitness spokesperson Gertrude Tevita says the partnership responds to increasing interest in physical activity among young people and the potential to connect them with positive influences through community-based programmes.

“For us, this is not simply about sponsoring gym equipment. We are backing a community programme that is already working with some of Hawke’s Bay’s most vulnerable young people and helping it reach more of them.”

The gym operator will consider supporting additional community fitness pods once suitable locations and local instructors have been identified. Armstrong says the Meke Foundation has received expressions of interest from around 25 communities, stretching from Kaikohe to Bluff.

That interest could take the Hawke’s Bay community fitness approach into other parts of New Zealand, although no further locations or opening dates have been confirmed in the announcement.

Impact PR and Community Health Communication

Public understanding of community health initiatives depends on clear information about who can access a service, where it operates and the barriers it is designed to address. Effective media relations can help charities and health organisations explain the evidence behind their programmes and the outcomes they hope to achieve. Credible coverage can also bring locally developed approaches to the attention of funders, community partners and decision-makers. Impact PR works in health-related communications, including media engagement and public education for organisations addressing health and wellbeing issues. Its health and medical PR agency services support the communication of complex health topics in accessible, factual language.