LOCKPORT —
If they want to raise $3,000 for a great cause, they’re going to have to lose 50 pounds each, within six weeks.
Lockport Athletic & Fitness Club kicked off its second annual Downtown Meltdown weight loss/fundraising challenge this week. Six men who live in the public eye are signed up to get fit for themselves and, in the process, raise money for a local charity.
For every pound the group loses by Feb. 12, LAFC will donate $10 to Opportunities Unlimited of Niagara.
Who’s game for being a loss leader? Meltdown returners Mayor Michael Tucker, Papa Leo’s owner Parker Greenman and local promoter/restaurant manager Gary Chapman are joined in this New Year challenge by Niagara County Clerk Wayne Jagow, county Legislator Tony Nemi and court officer Pete Robinson.
All were recruited to the Meltdown by kickboxer/LAFC owner Amer Abdallah and personal trainer Gina Nowak, who’s supervising the participants’ thrice-weekly intense workouts at the gym. The club also is providing nutrition counseling for each man.
Being specially invited to take part in the contest gave the newcomers a really good feeling, briefly, they said.
“I was flattered they thought of me. Then I realized they were looking for overweight men,” Nemi deadpanned.
Self-effacing Jagow says he was recruited “for obvious reasons. When I say I’m a big politician, I mean I’m a big politician.”
Abdallah set up a robust challenge when he told the press first, rather than the men themselves, how much he expects LAFC to donate to Opportunities Unlimited.
“We’re shooting for 300 pounds and $3,000. That’s an average of 50 pounds per person,” he said. “They’ve got their work cut out for them ... but I know they’re committed.”
“Fifty? Fifty! Try 30,” Mayor Tucker said.
Nemi says he’s striving to lose 35 pounds, and Jagow 60 pounds, by mid-February. It won’t be easy, they know.
Final weigh-ins by the contestants, at noon Feb. 12 at LAFC, will be open to the public, Abdallah said.
The first Meltdown, in November 2009, raised $2,000 for United Way of Eastern Niagara.
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