Out of the ashes: Unity fitness center clients help owner recover from devastating fire

For many clients of My Fitness Kitchen in Unity, seeing the damage left behind by a fire this week at the business was heartbreaking.

Knowing owner Mark Rullo’s passion and livelihood was in jeopardy made it even worse. That pushed dozens of them to show up Friday morning to the charred storefront to clean soot from fitness equipment and move it to a temporary workout space elsewhere in Latrobe 30 Shoppes.

They used heavy machinery, flat bed trailers and elbow grease to get thousands of pounds of equipment into the new home.

“My Fitness Kitchen is the kind of place where we’re all friends, we enjoy coming here,” said Danielle Cycak of Unity. “He cares about his clients. It’s the right thing to do.”

“The manpower was the biggest piece of today,” she said.

Kevin Nowe of Unity agreed. He’s been a client there for nine years and said the fitness center is a community.

“It’s a real family environment here and I think we all feel that same loss that Mark is feeling right now,” though not on the same level, Nowe said.

The blaze broke out around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in the area of Roadman’s Country Living Shoppe, which was next door to My Fitness Kitchen. Those two stores had heavy damage and charred storefronts remained blocked off by fence Friday.

Flames consumed a 250-foot section of wooden canopy that covers the sidewalks in front of the strip of stores, according to fire officials. The cause remains under investigation. A state police fire marshal was at the scene Friday.

In addition, five businesses and four empty storefronts had varying degrees of damage. No one was hurt.

Firefighters extinguished the flames before they reached the Harbor Freight store, but it, Goodwill and SCG Hobby remained closed, according to Ralph Scalise, owner of Scalise Real Estate Co. and property manager. Jerald Jewelers and Plaza News Stand had reopened.

A backpack program run by the Rotary Club of Latrobe also was affected by the fire as they keep supplies in a storefront there. Volunteers meet there regularly to fill the backpacks with food for needy students in kindergarten through sixth grade at Greater Latrobe and Derry Area school districts.

The fire resulted in the loss of about three weeks’ worth of food, the rotary said in a social media post. Club officials could not be reached Friday.

It’ll be a few weeks until the strip mall is boarded up, but Scalise said an architect and engineer will help the property owner assess how to move forward quickly for customers and tenants.

“It’s going to give us an opportunity to update the look of the center,” he said.

In the meantime, Rullo said he expects to reopen My Fitness Kitchen in the temporary location near One Main Financial on Monday, six days after the fire. It’s a smaller space so some of the fitness equipment was moved into storage, but there was plenty of it ready to go for clients — dumbbells, weight racks, machines, kettle bells and medicine balls, among other things.

My Fitness Kitchen is a training and coaching center that works with individuals and helps them with exercise and nutrition goals. It’s been in business for about 15 years. There are about 160 clients.

“If I didn’t have something within two weeks, I’d have been out of business,” Rullo said.

The move was made possible by an estimated 70 volunteers and employees, he said.

“These people, unselfishly, are allowing me to continue to do that,” he said.

They used soap and water to wash down the equipment. Heavy machinery such as a skid loader was used to transport some of the items between storefronts. The help is expected to continue Saturday.

Mary Smetak of Derry Township said on the morning of the fire, she reached out to Rullo by text message. She’s been a client there for about 15 years.

“He was consoling me,” she said. “It all comes down to him being a remarkable individual. He’s so supportive and encouraging.”

Smetak showed up Friday as a way to throw that support right back.

”It’s a family,” she said. “Everyone wants to see him succeed.”