Oklahoma Christian University trustee Greg Wedel and his wife Valari are donating money to overhaul all fitness equipment on campus and renovate the fitness center.
Formerly the House of Payne, the fitness facility in the Payne Athletic Center will be renamed “The Dub” in honor of the donors.
“I feel like if we do get more stuff [in the fitness center], it will help more people want to be healthy and more people want to be active,” junior Sam Kuneman said.
Kuneman is on the Women’s Soccer Team, which makes fitness a pivotal aspect of her college experience.
“It’s extremely important,” Kuneman said. “We have to be in shape [to play] soccer, which is an extremely contact sport, so… we have to be able to hold our own. We have to be able to be strong out there on the field to play soccer.”
Among the Thrive fundraising campaign, Valari said making a donation to the fitness center rather than other areas of campus reflected the values of the Wedel family and shares a piece of their lifestyle with the Oklahoma Christian community.
“We’re very big proponents of health,” Valari said. “We love being outdoors and [doing] activity and running with our family and we love OC. It just made such perfect sense that we can give our money.”
Sophomore Will Cooke uses the fitness center on a regular basis and said there is an apparent need for updated items in the fitness facilities on campus.
“We obviously need more equipment,” Cooke said. “You see pictures on Twitter about how OC Thrive needs to get new equipment, and I think that [getting new equipment] would make [exercising] a lot better.”
Kuneman said the Wedel family’s donation is meeting a need on campus and she thinks students will benefit from the generous contribution to campus.
“Having the [Wedels] come back and help shows that we really do need [the renovation],” Kuneman said. “I know it probably would be really expensive right now, but people will get good use of it.”
According to Valari, the decision to donate came easily as she and her husband look to give money whenever possible.
“We just both think that we have just been blessed with so many financial resources,” Valari said. “We are just here to try to do what God wants us to do with it. We’re always open, we know we’re going to give [our money] away.”
In light of their generosity, Valari said Oklahoma Christian has allowed the Wedels to be highly involved in developing the plan for the renovated facilities.
“The school has been wonderful in letting us help work on that,” Valari said. “If we have ideas, they try to design those out and think those out and implement it – they’ve been wonderful to work with.”
Kuneman said she looks forward to enjoying the new facilities in the fall when the renovations are expected to be complete, and she said she thinks it will inspire her to workout even more.
“I love to workout, I love to do all of that stuff,” Kuneman said. “Having good equipment – or better than what we have now – it kind of makes you want to work out more, because it gives you more of a resource.”
The renovations of the fitness center is not the first donation the Wedel family has made to fitness and wellness at Oklahoma Christian. They helped fund other major projects, including the Eagle Trail.
“We have supported probably just about every program Darci has initiated with TeamOC,” Valari said. “All of the things you’ll see, we support all of it because we really believe in it.”
According to Valari, she sees all of the donations as ways to give back to a place that blessed her.
“I gained so much from my experience there,” Valari said. “I love that idea of paying things forward. OC invested in me as a kid…I was a lot more refined and my faith was stronger…and that came from the school, so I want to give back to the school so they can continue to do that to future generations.”
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