We were lucky to catch up with Patricia Jenkins recently and have shared our conversation below.

Patricia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Solutions For Everybody started when I started my weight loss journey. My Solution to living healthier for myself and my family. I once weighed 320 pounds:scenario five children with three ages in the early 20’s and the two younger were pre teen and teenager both active in sports. Being the fun mom and person I am who enjoys sports, outdoors, and fairs. I wanted to be involved with my kids and experience this with them to have those precious memories as I did growing up. But as I aged and got married the weight and comfort came on. I could not enjoy the activities with my family. I was too large to fit on rides, and could not run with them during their sports and practices. That’s when I knew I had to make a change to my lifestyle. With an aerobics background I knew what needed to be done I just had to take my health back. I started my true journey in 2013 and found the real Solution to finally being successful at losing weight while maintaining a rewarding quality of life.

After I found My Solution I became excited with my results. My behavior changed. I became more disciplined and my life changed.

Once I learned this new solution to weight loss and having a healthier lifestyle, I wanted to share with others who like me may have struggled with barriers during their weight loss journey to live healthier. I felt more compassionate to help others because I could identify with those who experience these barriers during their journey. I know it takes a person with an approach who is believable and one that clients can see how the process was and can be, as it was for me on my journey. This is why I became a personal trainer. I’m the trainer that has a story to share with proven results.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am Patricia, mother to five wonderful adult children and wife to the most humble man I know on earth. I am 58 years young and am a Certified Personal Trainer, Youth Exercise Specialist, Nutrition Specialist and Senior Exercise Specialist and teach Silver Sneakers. I found My Solution to living a healthier lifestyle so I went to school to become certified in these skills to help others. I wanted to be able to provide a full range of services for health and fitness for all ages.

Having Solutions For EveryBody in the center of a city that is underserved I felt a need to offer the services to the community at rates that members could afford and free to all youth and young adults still in college.
The program that I offer to adults are 12 weeks of fitness, nutritional guidance, and coaching. I offer meal preparations services for those who can afford this.
We are a NASM sponsored facility as well as a Silver Sneakers facility for our seniors in the community.

My passion to help others came from my drive and motivation that I used during my journey of losing over 180 pounds and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
This is something that I wanted to share with others this great and rewarding experience of a better quality of life.
My mission is to help others in the community that are seeking to live a healthier lifestyle. My goal is to be able to make an impact on childhood obesity by offering services at our facility for the youth to come and experience a safe environment that will be a resource for them and their families.
By providing the youth with after school programs that will have tutoring, social skills, nutritional food for snacks and take home dinners with recipes we will help that family and make their load and lives a little easier.
We will also have their fitness portion as we encourage them to put all electronic devices away and get physical to promote a healthier lifestyle and make better choices when it comes to food and nutrition.

For our adults and seniors we offer classes and services that help improve their quality of life with fitness classes, nutritional guidance while offering meal prepping choices. We want our adults to have fitness that is fun, and close to their neighborhood.
We offer services that teach functional fitness that include strength, stretching techniques that can be assisted. We want our members to gain flexibility and mobility so they can have a better quality of life.
We also offer spa services in this community that is convenient for those who don’t have to travel to the next city that can be priced higher. When others are high we go low. While maintaining great services and experience for our members

So far we have made an impact in the community that have disparities. We have members who have joined our program and share testimonies of their weight loss journey and how they have found Their Solution to improving their health by having more energy and have shared their experiences with family members who have joined.
We have increased our memberships and look forward to more growth in other underserved communities.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

My marketing and advertising game is not on point due to affordability. I really only use social media platforms for attracting clients. I’ve posted great stories of members progress and have gained new clients from these posts.
I also gain new clients from my story and how I was a guest on Red Table Talk. My before and after pictures are also what my clients mention when they come for consultations.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I started Solutions For EveryBody as a non profit with two months of lease payments and 30 signed members. I hoped that we would sustain the building and expenses with those 30 members. After our grand opening in late 2021 November to be exact. Members started no showing, not keeping promises to pay monthly agreed payments and more members were dropping. A new outbreak of COVID was the reason in declining membership. With that happening I knew I was going to lose Solutions.
With much prayer and guidance I did not give up. I held fundraisers to continue on with the mission. I started doing pop up fitness for early childhood and Pre K children to earn more money for Solutions.
We have picked up contracts to work with youth organizations to bring awareness to youth obesity with our fitness and nutrition program.
We were invited to receive a grant for our program through an organization with the same mission goals as ours.
We have hired a grant writer to seek funding for our programs.
We have the goal to grow and get involved with the community to beat obesity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.solutionsforeverybody.net/
• Instagram: solutions_for_everybody
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SolutionsForEveryBody?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@patriciajenkins2086

Image Credits
Judah Fabre