PHIT Center at Garden Park Elementary School

Location: Brownsville, TX
Surface System Used: PlayBound TurfTop, EverTop & A-Turf
Completion: December 2024

Overview

The Brownsville Independent School District in Brownsville, TX, partnered with PHIT America, a nonprofit providing solutions to end the inactivity pandemic among America’s youth, to create the PHIT Center at Garden Park Elementary School. This innovative open-air children’s fitness facility includes two systems from Surface America, PlayBound TurfTop and EverTop, and Golf/Multipurpose Turf System with sand infill, from sister company, A-Turf.

Key Challenges and Solutions

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 77 percent of U.S. children don’t meet the recommended level of 60 minutes of physical activity per day. Recognizing the youth in its elementary schools could benefit from more physical fitness, the Brownsville Independent School District partnered with PHIT America to open an innovative fitness facility and first ever PHIT Center at Garden Park Elementary School.

The 150-foot by 90-foot PHIT Center is a revolutionary open-air facility that gets up to 60 kids moving and having fun with music while learning 10 different sports and fitness skills from soccer to pickleball and running. Kids move around the facility in a circuit training fashion and are also able to use the Center before and after school, for physical education, and at recess. The PHIT Center is open to the community for free on the weekends.

Surface America, partnering with sister company A-Turf, supplied three different surfaces for the PHIT Center at Garden Park Elementary School. The turf area features 2,800 square feet of PlayBound TurfTop and a multipurpose turf system with sand infill from A-Turf, both of which are designed for golf and multipurpose use on the exterior sides of the courts. PlayBound TurfTop resists wear and tear from heavy foot traffic, so it looks like perfectly groomed grass. This surface also features two layers – a turf roll with perforated backing over a poured rubber basemat.

There’s also 1,816 square-feet of red EverTop in each corner of the PHIT Center. EverTop™ is the top surface layer of the PlayBound™ Poured-in-Place system and consists of recycled post-industrial EPDM rubber and polyurethane. JC Safety Surfacing installed all three surfaces.

PHIT America’s goal is to have PHIT Centers in every major community in the U.S.A. A second PHIT Center is being planned in Brownsville, and more are in the works. Cesar Murillo, Principal of Garden Park Elementary School said, “What PHIT America is doing for Brownsville is truly needed for the current and future wellbeing of our youth. The PHIT Center is defining the future of physical education for America.”