Creating a fitness path in Murrells Inlet a scout’s honor

Scouting is in Daniel Arteaga’s genes.

Jeanette Samra-Arteaga, an attorney and Arteaga’s mom, leads a Girl Scout troop that includes his sister, Rebecca.

Mike Samra, Samra-Arteaga’s dad, has been a scoutmaster for 30 years. Arteaga’s father helps with Troop 819 at St. Michael’s Catholic Church and School in Murrells Inlet and Arteaga’s uncle and a cousin are Eagle Scouts. On Saturday, Daniel, will join the duo in the top ranks of the Boy Scouts.

But it’s the people who live near St. Michael’s who will benefit. Arteaga, a quietly passionate 17-year-old senior at St. James High School, has crated a five-station fitness path on the grounds of St. Michael’s Catholic Church and School in Murrells Inlet.

While he’s in pretty good shape – he plays soccer for St. James – not everyone exercises regularly, especially young people.

“Health and fitness is a big issue in the United States, and has been for the last 20 to 30 years,” Arteaga said about his motivation for his project. “Kids have been getting a lot heavier, and it’s basically because of the lack of physical activity. So I thought that by putting that there, you have something where kids can go for free to workout. But it is for adults, for kids, the whole community, the church, anyone.”

There’s a station for pull-ups, sit-ups, balance beam, parallel bars and push-ups – more than enough to get the most engaged or sedentary person involved.

Arteaga, as do all Eagle Scouts, conceived his project, designed it, estimated the costs, raised the funds, got the organization that houses the project behind him and built the apparatuses, taking about a year from conception to completion. Actual installation took about two days.

While some of the stations were relatively easy to install, at least one required special attention. Ironically, the most difficult station – the pull-up area.

“It was probably the most difficult, but it was the coolest. There were three sticks that were like 10 feet long, and we had to dig holes to make sure they were all level. Then we had to put the bars through them, and we had to have people to hold them up so we could get the poles in,” Arteaga said. “Everything had to be right.”

Throughout the project Arteaga got help from his father. But he did the yeoman’s work, speaking at St. Michael’s Masses to raise funds, researching the Internet for ideas of how to create the stations and drawing plans to specifications. In the end, he raised about $3,000, double the $1,500 cost to establish the fitness path. The extra money goes to the church and school to maintain the equipment and grounds of the fitness path.

The fitness project wasn’t his first choice. At first, Arteaga recalled, he wanted to create bat boxes and place them in a park. Then he thought about seats for a park. But somehow, those ideas weren’t quite right. When he hit upon the fitness path idea, he knew he had found his project.

“We came across a fitness path a couple of years back, and I thought, ‘this is cool,’ something I could do, and we didn’t have one of those around here,” Arteaga said. But he put it to the back of his mind until it came time to present his project.

There is an exercise path in the park at the Surfside Beach library, but not one nearby that is specifically for fitness.

Not only did the fitness path gain Arteaga his Eagle Scout rank, it helped with his senior project for St. James High School. He wrote a paper about the project and the path doubled as his community service project.

And while Arteaga has other hobbies – such as watching and playing sports, playing video games and going to the gym – scouting is in his blood.

Therefore, he expects he’ll stay in the family business, no matter where life takes him.

This story was originally published January 20, 2017 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Creating a fitness path in Murrells Inlet a scout’s honor."