Although the outdoor recreational industry offers a variety of activities to try, participants aren’t very diverse. According to a study by the Outdoor Industry Association, about 70% of outdoor participants in 2022 were white. Less than 10% of participants were Black and just more than 10% were Hispanic.
While the number of outdoor participants is “much more diverse than ever before,” there’s still work to be done, according to the association. And a Denver organization wants to help locally.
Function f(x) Wellness aims to diversify the outdoor and wellness industries and help underrepresented groups live healthy lives, co-founder Aimara Rodriguez said. For now, the company is focused on people of color, at-risk youth and people with disabilities.
Function Wellness is the brainchild of Rodriguez and her brother Carlos Rodriguez, who has been a personal trainer and wellness advocate for more than 10 years and is the current lead instructor for Denver Parks & Recreation’s Adaptive Recreation division. Aimara Rodriguez has worked in the tech space helping companies scale for the last decade.
“We wanted to merge our skills, our experiences to build an organization that ultimately is helping to diversify the outdoor space and community,” she said, “but also really equipping Black and brown communities and typically underrepresented groups with the knowledge and resources on how to live a healthier lifestyle, and ultimately, why it’s important because that’s a dialogue that is missing very much in those communities.”
The siblings are joined by Emma Millan, Function Wellness’ head of programming and lead trainer. Millan is also a first through fifth-grade physical education teacher at the International School of Denver and a middle school basketball, tennis and track and field coach.
Function Wellness has a for-profit arm focused on personal training, classes and fitness and wellness workshops and a nonprofit arm centered around adventure therapy. Adventure therapy is designed to expose at-risk youth, people of color and people with disabilities to outdoor activities like hiking, skiing and snowshoeing, Aimara Rodriguez said.
From its launch in September 2023 to December 2023, Function Wellness held four events ranging from a boxing class with A1 Boxing in Aurora and a community workout class to a beginner 14er hike and bicycle ride from Denver to Colorado Springs.
In 2024, Function Wellness plans to build out its nonprofit arm with more standalone programs and events. Most events the organization held last year were centered around a partnership with another business.
“We want to leverage adventure and movement as a way to educate people not just about their bodies but about themselves and really give demographics that have just been overlooked in that entire process the chance to reclaim that because movement is the epicenter of everything we do,” Aimara Rodriguez said.
Function Wellness currently offers four programs. There’s a weekly non-contact boxing program for older adults with Parkinson’s disease done in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation and the Parkinson’s Association of the Rockies. Also in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation are cross-country skiing or snowshoeing, flag football and cycling events for adults with mental or physical disabilities.
Function Wellness also offers programming in partnership with Latino Outdoors Colorado — including a cross-country skiing and snowshoeing field trip on March 10. There's also a regular “out of school program” for students who leave SOAR, a nonprofit working with marginalized adolescents ages 7 to 19, but don’t have placement or guidance as to where to go after, Aimara Rodriguez said. Millan has been offering a boxing program to these youth.
“We’re merging the principles of movement and boxing, but also using that as an opportunity to get them to understand how to attach words to what they’re feeling," Aimara Rodriguez said.
The nonprofit arm of Function Wellness is developing an underlying curriculum for each program.
“Eventually what we want is a plug and play where [people can] bring your modality, how you want to move your body, and you have this underlying curriculum that you can teach youth or whoever the demographic is lessons that connect with social-emotional learning,” said Carlos Rodriguez, who also serves as Function Wellness’ lead trainer.
In addition to its weekly Power Punch Parkinson’s event, the next Function Wellness gathering that is open to the public will take place on June 1. More about this charity boxing event can be found on the company’s website.
The Function Wellness team is also on a quest to complete all of the summits in the “Lower 48,” which includes summiting 80 of the most prominent peaks in the Lower 48 of the U.S. Carlos Rodriguez has reached 21 of the 80 prominent summits so far.
“We just want people that look like us to also understand that this land is ours and we can go explore just as much as everyone else,” he said. “... To me, it’s always been this cultural lens where I feel like BIPOC communities see the outdoors and hunting and all this as white sports. But growing up in the deep South, I knew a bunch of Black fishermen, a bunch of Black hunters. It’s just something that is kind of siloed culturally around the country.”
Carlos Rodriguez said he wants people to feel welcome in all outdoor sports and activities. It’s a welcoming community, if you take care of the environment, and the community will welcome you with open arms, he said.
