Boston Square Wellness Collective
Odessa Yonkers, Owner
LOCATION
1534 Kalamazoo Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49507
Fitness isn't a luxury; it's a right, and she intends to deliver it to the neighborhood that raised her.
Wellness that belongs to the neighborhood.
Odessa Yonkers grew up in 49507, and her father died young from complications of diabetes and heart disease.
She spent years watching those same conditions work through her community, taking people early and quietly, and she got tired of how little was being done about it. The help that existed wasn't built for the people who needed it most. Boutique-priced clubs set up outside the inner city, offering a narrow version of fitness that treated health as one more thing to purchase rather than something woven through a person's whole life.
So she built what was missing.
Cost comes off the table first
Money is the barrier standing in front of every other barrier, which is why Odessa started there.
The Collective offers free community fitness classes, personal training, the Spring Into Action 5K, and the GR On The Move initiative, all designed so that somebody with no experience and no budget can still walk in and begin. Access is the whole point. It isn't a feature of the program; it's the reason the program exists.
More than a workout
For Odessa, this was never really about fitness on its own. It's about functional living, which means health integrated into the way you actually spend your days instead of bolted on as a separate commitment that falls off the first month things get hard.
That's why the Collective is built as classes, events, strategies, and learning together rather than a class schedule and nothing else. People need more than a place to sweat. They need to understand what's happening in their bodies, why it matters, and how to keep it going when nobody is watching. Working alongside partners like AmplifyGI, Odessa is building the space for that to happen.
Who it's for
Anybody in 49507 and anybody who wants in. Whatever your experience level, whatever your income, whether this is your first class or your fiftieth. Odessa is clear about why she does this. Fitness isn't a luxury, it's a right, and she intends to deliver it to the neighborhood that raised her.
