Reporter
IMPERIAL — Long-time business and fitness club, Fitness Oasis Health Club and Spa, celebrated a ribbon cutting for the Grand Opening of its new full-service “Oasis Salon,” July 21, in Imperial.
The health club also hosted a pet adoption event for the Humane Society of Imperial County, as the Fitness Oasis owner, Dalia Rodriguez, is also the Board President for the Humane Society.
The new salon wing of Fitness Oasis is a full-service salon, including “cut, color, waxing, manicure, pedicure, facials, massages; we’ve got everything for women and men,” Rodriguez said.
Though Fitness Oasis has existed as a gym and health spa since March 2007, Rodriguez said the grand opening of the salon came out of a business necessity to recover from COVID-19 shutdowns to gyms and loss of members.
“We’re still in recovery mode; all gyms are,” she said. “I’m so committed to my gym, to the ladies, and the health and wellness of it, and we had to increase of streams of revenue.”
Rodriguez also said the Oasis Salon will also be a service to the community through its new barbering and cosmetology apprenticeship program through the state of California.
In the barbering and cosmetology apprenticeship program, Oasis Salon school students will be able to learn on-site salon, shadowing licensed cosmetologists in a more hands-on learning environment than your average cosmetology school for a much cheaper price, Rodriguez said.
She said while private cosmetology schools will “run you anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000, ours is $6,000, and we offer monthly payments.”
“It allows people to have a career and livelihood,” she said of the new program and its payment possibilities. “I was a teacher for 30 years and I wanted to help our community, so we’re holding onto that apprenticeship program as long as we can.”
In addition to the salon and barbering-cosmetology school program, Rodriguez said Fitness Oasis is getting closer to opening the restaurant they’ve been planning on opening in the past few years.
“I’m vegetarian so it will probably be a vegetarian restaurant, fyi,” she chuckled. Rodriguez said there are no restaurants in the Imperial Valley which are vegetarian-only.
She said Fitness Oasis plans to open their new restaurant sometime within the next three months.
“Our mission statement was always to provide a safe environment for women to train, so now we’ve included kind of a one-stop shop,” Rodriguez said. “I think our goal is to provide a very safe and inviting environment for anyone. Massage and things like that are wellness things as well.”
As local Regional Chamber and City of Imperial members lauded the business for its new addition, Rodriguez, as the Human Society Board President, pleaded with the crowd gathered to help raise funds and get information out to the public on bolstering donations for a new kennel.
Rodriguez said the Humane Society of Imperial County needs about $2 million to start construction, and has raised at about $800,000 so far.
“What we need to do is tear down those kennels, and I wouldn’t even call them kennels,” she said. “To me it’s an embarrassment in the Imperial Valley that we let our animals live in those conditions.”
“At the end of the day it is about money but even very small donations make a big difference,” she said. “We want to have a beautiful Humane Society that houses animals appropriately. I would, at this point, beg you to please share this information.”
At the event, four people present pledged around $1,000 on the spot for improvements to the Humane Society of Imperial County facilities.
In addition to Fitness Oasis’s new offerings, it still offers various services including a dance room, weight room, swimming pool, various massages including couples massages, and a wide variety of fitness classes including Latin Dance, yoga, pilates, weight training, water aerobics and more.
Fitness Oasis also rents out its pool for private parties to non-members, Rodriguez said. She said the new Oasis Salon will take walk-ins as well as by-appointment customers.
For more information on Fitness Oasis Health Club and Spa offerings, call 760-355-8888 or visit their social media pages on Facebook and Instagram @fitnessoasisiv.
To inquire how to donate or adopt from the Humane Society of Imperial County, call 760-352-1911, email ivhumanesociety@gmail.com, or do a “pet search” on their website, imperialcountyhumane.org.
rflores@thedesertreview.com
A post shared by F.O. Health Club & Spa (@fitnessoasisiv)
Reporter
Roman has worked for multiple local news and non-profit orgs including IV Press and VW Mag, IVROP, St. JP2 Radio and is also with The Southern Cross. An El Centro native, he graduated from Marywood U in Scranton, Pennsylvania. rflores@thedesertreview.com
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