Hard work = REFIT expansion in West Virginia
Active SWV is continually proud to partner with the Beckley, Kanawha, and Webster REFIT team instructors. The Beckley Community Captain REFIT instructors have offered the program for free to participants in Beckley for many years, and more recently the program has expanded to new counties like Kanawha, Webster, and now Nicholas and Fayette. REFIT’s format fits Active SWV’s vision to bring high quality physical activity to every corner of the state without emphasis on size or shape, but real growth as individuals. REFIT is for everyBODY, no matter where someone is in their fitness journey.
What is REFIT?
REFIT is community centered dance fitness. It’s a place to come together without judgement, and move your body with other people who are there to do the same thing. REFIT is a nationwide fitness platform. Check out their website for inspiration!
REFIT founders come to Beckley
The REFIT Beckley instructors were determined to bring the founders to WV to teach an instructor training for community members. This goal came to fruition in November 2025. Founders Angela Beeler and Catherine Ballas traveled from Waco, TX to Beckley, WV to deliver the last stop on their Fit with Friends Tour, training new instructors throughout the region and refreshing currently trained instructors.
The weekend began with a high energy, REFIT experience class on Friday. This class was open to the public, and included new instructor hopefuls as well as local regular participants. It was a cardio dance party that put a smile on everyone’s faces!
Saturday was new instructor training day. The new instructors started with the background and the ‘why’ behind REFIT, and progressed to learning choreography and class set up.
Sunday was the first time that the ‘REV and Flow’ format has been taught on the road as an instructor course, and several instructors from all around joined to add it to their resume.
Through amazing partnership with the REFIT Beckley team to bring this in person training event to West Virginia, Active SWV was able to add five brand new REFIT instructors to the Community Captain roster. A few existing Community Captains were also additionally trained in the companion format, Rev and Flow.
New opportunities to dance to your health will be coming to Nicholas and Fayette counties in January 2026. Additionally, a new day is being added to REFIT Kanawha, and Rev and Flow will be added to existing schedules within the REFIT Beckley and Webster REFIT communities.
You may come to try something new, but it is guaranteed that you will stay because of the people you meet. The passion of the instructors for sharing their love of REFIT and the friendliness and warmth of the participant experience will have you coming back multiple times each week!
Longtime Beckley REFIT instructor and Community Captain Allonna Tilley recounts what the weekend was like. Read her story below!
Day 1
This weekend was the perfect pairing of REFIT®, our love for our hometown, and the beautiful partnership we’ve built with Active Southern West Virginia. More about that coming in a later post. It was an extreme honor to be chosen as one of the tour stops for the FIT WITH FRIENDS TOUR for 2025 and even more being the last stop. Our team poured everything we had into this weekend and you deserve to see that journey. There was a story behind every detail. Let’s let off the fireworks so to speak.
The Facility: Our brand new Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club. We approached them about doing this in their facility because they are very community centered and we hoped all of their beautiful work would be spotlighted. They were amazing to work with. Our team has plans to ring bells as a group if chosen.
The theme: We’re all in this together- High School Musical. Not only were We merging two of our favorite organizations together, We know it’s been a hard year for a lot of people and with this being the last tour stop for 2025 as well as right before the holidays, our goal was to spotlight that REFIT® is always here for you. Whatever your season, cheering you on.
Let the ” production” begin:
The night began getting everyone registered quickly, so we could begin our hype session/pep rally. The story behind this began because of 3 reasons. First, our participants support us so well to attend RECON, our annual instructor convention, that we wanted to give them a little glimpse into what they support each and every year so generously. Second, we know that we had some instructors coming that didn’t get to attend RECON for various reasons and it was important to us that they had a little “mini RECON”. Third, our instructor community showed up for us big time and we wanted our friends to do what they do best, pump up the crowd. Jennifer Lucas Bledsoe did an amazing job making sure that every state that came was represented (OH-IO, WV, Indiana, North Carolina) + we had 2 of our showcase winners in the house. Brandy Peddie Graham kicked us off with her Award winning (Favorite Showcase song) I’m IT which our participants learned at our choreography camp this summer. And since no pep Rally is complete without a mascot Kelsey Delgado and her team at Chick-fil-A Galleria made our dreams come true by providing the cheerleader cow to take photos with our guests and of course do Pom poms with us.
For the experience class, our dream was to provide a concert experience and wowza. Tina White and her amazing hubby Neil with Thunder Productions and Providence insurance provided our sound for the night. And they did not disappoint. I am often not speechless, but Neil is top notch. Wait until my next post. I have more to tell here.
We kicked off the night with Thunderstruck which I had the honor of presenting at RECON with my good friend Kim Lemons Thompson during the experience class. Fun fact this happens to be the anthem for Marshall University one of our main colleges here in West Virginia, so I asked Mallory Evans Mount to join me because fun fact. She happens to be a professor at Marshall. GO HERD. She is also our REFIT community choreography coach , but this weekend she was wearing her mountain Momma hat. The rest of the team had the honor of leading Feels Like Dancing, which we chose because it happens to be our participants favorite song.
Enjoy the ride. More to tell.
Training Day- Day 2
This is where all the hard work, collaboration and planning came to work. Our biggest goal with our recruiting was to grow the REFIT community in our part of the state and increase coverage of REFIT as well as growing our Active Southern West Virginia community. We have so many requests for classes, but there just isn’t enough for us to staff several areas without taking away from our current classes.
So this summer, we planted and watered seeds in our summer series of REFIT® pop ups and we are so excited to welcome 6 new instructors to the Active Southern West Virginia. Tina White and Mary Stone Kinsey added teammates and we will have additional classes popping up in Kanawha, Fayette and Nicholas county very soon. These teams are going to be fantastic. We are excited about the future of REFIT ® here in Southern West Virginia.
Special thank you to Elizabeth Raney for finding venues, encouraging recruits, getting us all together prior to training and honestly anything we asked for she was there to roll up her sleeves and work with us. I can honestly say you will not find a better recruiting team than we have been this summer and I am so excited for 2026. We truly do have the best support with Active Southern West Virginia, but more importantly we have valued friendships across the entire organization.
Congratulations to our newest instructors. Can’t wait to help you launch your new classes and see your hard work come to light.
Training Day- Day 2 Part 2
We made Rev + Flow history and hosted the first ever LIVE on tour Rev + Flow training.
I enlisted the help of my Rev + Flow momma Brandy Peddie Graham to ensure all the details worked out as they should and honestly it was good to hear the information again so soon because I’m pretty sure my nerves got the best of me at RECON and I blanked out.
Mary Stone Kinsey and Alicia Terry trained for Rev + Flow along with 5 other friends and we will be offering this revolutionary workout through the Active Southern West Virginia network in 2026.
Special shout out to my team for the quick thinking and the Raleigh County Community Action Building for allowing us to move the class over there to ensure everyone had ample space to train when we added new trainees Saturday morning. Our community really pulled together in every aspect to make sure this training happened.
I’m so excited to see how our community benefits from our ripple effect.
Day 2- Training Day is a wrap
Y’all Saturday night breathed life into my soul.
During all of our planning sessions, the theme of conversation-we want to bridge the gap between incoming and current instructors and we didn’t want our friends coming to town and feel like we barely saw them as we would be busy serving.
10/10 worth the loss of rest. Active let us use their office for a musical BINGO get together and my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much.
Laughing, singing, hugs and just being together. Just what the doctor ordered.
Day 3- Rev + Flow and the see you laters.
I loved being able to showcase this format and have our participants experience this with the founder herself. We had a special guest this workout, Angela’s sister Flo and found out we have mutual friends. Small world. Brandy Peddie Graham and I led To Hell with the Devil. This is the song that sparked my interest to become an instructor and we did this an entire month of this song.
So grateful to Mallory and Brandy for joining our team this weekend. Special thanks to Elizabeth Cox for keeping the swag shop basically open all weekend since we strategically placed it inside the workout space and our guests could enjoy the 40 percent off sale whenever it was convenient. To Summer, Isabella, and Amber Unroe for jumping in to help when needed.
To our husbands and kids: Chuck, Doug, Brian, Jeremy Ethan for providing parking and security Friday night
Jeremy and Chuck for providing AV and Sound Saturday.
Jeremy and Ethan for literally setting up and getting sound ready Saturday and Sunday at two different locations. DJ Capps for helping me run sound Sunday so I could do Rev + Flow.
All the instructors who traveled, sent messages cheering us on I’m speechless.
Thank you for coming to our HOME.
I used every event planning trick my mom taught me. I know she was proud. Helping people care for their bodies and feel loved is my calling
My heart is so so full.
Take your first steps to join a REFIT class!
Create your free online membership with Active SWV to access the program schedules.
Find us on Facebook to join REFIT groups.
Join our monthly newsletter for all of the updates!