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Pay it Forward Fitness, a donation driven cardio class, donated $540 to TN Food on Foot to aid in its services.

The fitness class is held four times a week at First Presbyterian Church in Morristown and runs off of donations from participants.

Dona Byron, instructor and owner, hosts the class for free, but asks that those who attend give donations and those funds raised are given to local nonprofits in need.

The group votes each month on agencies in the area they want to help. The class previously donated $306 to the Daily Bread and they are working the month of February to raise funds for the Morristown-Hamblen Humane Society.

“We want to help all the animals in the shelter who just want to find a home and be loved,” Bryon said. “The facility is always in need and my students wanted to help them out this month.”

Since November, Byron has held more than 30 classes and worked with 200 participants and has raised more than $800.

The nonprofits that have received donations from Byron’s class are very appreciative of the funds.

“I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. You don’t know how much this helps us here,” said Carolyn Jarnagin, Food on Foot president. “We get a lot of donations throughout November and December because those are the times people especially want to give, but we see a drought through the month of January.”

“The thing is no matter what we don’t receive in January or any month we continue with our work and we still make the 600 bags for the kids to take home for the weekend.”

Jarnagin is especially grateful for the donation with the upcoming holidays in mind.

“A couple of years ago I had a little girl come up to me and say how she was so sad because she couldn’t give out valentines to her friends and so we started giving those out to kids,” Jarnagin said. “In two weeks we plan to give out Valentine cards to kids so that they will be able to give valentine gifts to their peers.”

“Kids should be able to just be kids and not have to worry about if they are going to be able to give gifts to their friends, so we are eliminating that worry.”

Another holiday on the horizon is Easter and Food on Foot plans to go big to help the community celebrate.

“This year we plan on giving our more than 800 Easter baskets to people in the community,” Jarnagin said. “We plan on giving baskets to a nursing home in Rogersville, the Life Care Center in Morristown and the usual baskets at our Berkline location.”

“We want to give baskets to our senior community because a lot of them are overlooked and rarely get visitors and we just want to show them some love.”

Byron plans to continue to help Food on Foot and other local agencies in the area.

“My goal is to help those organization when they really need it. If they have a big event planned in a certain month or if they expect a lack of donations we want to step in and help when help is needed,” Byron said.

Byron has a busy schedule planned for February with four classes planned each week that are filled with a variety of cardio workouts.

For more information on Pay it Forward Fitness visit its Facebook page. For more information on TN Food on Foot visit its webpage or call 865 566-5778.