Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Vance.
Hannah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
AJOYFULOVE ATHLETICS, LLC was founded by Hannah Vance in December of 2022. However, the ajoyfulove concept was created much earlier. Before becoming a legal sports business, Hannah established ajoyfulove as a blog sharing her heart about how to live a joyful and loving life. A little while later, Hannah established an online etsy shop where she sold t-shirts that were designed in order to spark conversation about where true joy and love comes from–Jesus Christ.
When Hannah moved to the Golden Isles, she found herself missing coaching gymnastics and very long story short, established a business teaching private tumbling lessons to athletes in Saint Simons Island and Brunswick, Georgia. AJOYFULOVE started out as a mobile gymnastics program affiliated with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Hannah packed her car with mats and air tracks and drove home to home giving lessons to athletes that she registered with her AAU gymnastics club.
After a couple of months of searching for space to start a group class, Crossfit SSI offered her some space. She started with one preschool class and one beginner gymnastics class for children ages 5 and up. These classes quickly filled and she was able to add one more class for 5 and up, a mommy & me class, and a homeschool class. By June of 2023, Hannah was able to add another location in her garage in Brunswick, GA. This expansion allowed for more gymnastics equipment for more advanced gymnasts. She added more classes at her home location in Brunswick, and started training a group of girls to compete in the following year. When the program hit 60 children, Hannah decided she ought to find a more permanent location and a few more coaches. After a long time looking, she settled on a very run down, abandoned upholstery shop on Norwich St. in downtown Brunswick. She signed a lease in November of 2023 and took three months getting the building ready for business. Business ceased on Saint Simons Island and in Hannah’s garage and began in the new Norwich Street location in February of 2024.
By March, Hannah knew she would need a bigger space much sooner than expected. The program surpassed having 100 athletes by May of 2024.
After a lot of prayer and building searching, Hannah got a call from her realtor, Luke Jackson, that there was space for rent in a building that used to have gymnastics and was currently running a local cheer program, elite BKC.
With much disappointment, after seeing the space, Hannah told Luke that it just wasn’t big enough unless we also had the space that the cheer program was using. But then, God. A week or so later, Luke called Hannah and told her that the owner of elite BKC wanted to sell her the cheer program so that she could use the whole space. The only thing they asked was that she keep the cheer program going.
After much excitement, question asking, and prayer, Hannah accepted this opportunity feeling that it was the path that God was leading her down even if it didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t long after opening in our current location on Center Drive that we hit some bumps in the road. Elite BKC cheer coaches decided to leave and unfortunately so did their athletes. This was a source of income that was needed to keep AJOYFULOVE running. We are still facing financial challenges after this unexpected event, but God has kept us going for some reason. All credit to Him.
We have been in our current space for just over a year despite challenges. We have a competitive team of about 20 girls and we have 24 recreational gymnastics/tumbling classes. We also have day camps and other fun events throughout the year.
Despite challenges, Hannah still strives to provide a safe, loving, joyful, and Godly environment for her athletes and He is still providing.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No. Finances have been a struggle. We have never pulled a business loan, so everything has been done out of pocket. Hitting financial bumps like the cheer program leaving have definitely created some challenges.
Our building also flooded twice earlier this year which has limited our usable space and presented other financial challenges.
Despite these challenges, the Lord has still provided and we are making progress as we can! Our athletes, athlete families, and staff are happy, and that is what matters most to us!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
MISSION: At AJOYFULOVE, we care for the athlete as a whole: heart, mind, body, and soul. We are here to train dedicated and hardworking athletes with proper technique as well as develop joyful and loving people who understand the importance of caring for themselves and others spiritually, mentally, and physically.
I am the owner and head coach. My role includes a lot of everything. I oversee all legal business tasks as well as program development. I train our coaches and other staff so that they have the gymnastics knowledge and certificates that they need to coach positively and effectively in a way that represents our mission. I also manage and coach our competition team. The competition team is my biggest focus. I train them in their skills and create and teach their routines for competitions. I also communicate with parents about all competition team details.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I hope that we have lots of changes in the next 5-10 years! I would love for our program to continue to grow in all things gymnastics and more. I hope that our competition team will expand as well to incorporate higher level gymnastics.
We hope to offer more daytime programs and would love to start an afterschool program as well. We have summer day camps every day in the summer and we want to grow these into being known as the best summer day camp in the area.
I have a degree in psychology and would love to enter in a mental health program. I would love to get my masters in counseling one day and incorporate a counseling service within AJOYFULOVE.
Pricing:
- $70/month Mommy & Me
- $85/month 1 hour recreational class
- $110/month pre-team
- $145-$300/month competition team
- $10-$60 day camps/events
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ajoyfuloveathletics.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajoyfuloveathletics/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ajoyfulovegymnastics/
