Marsha Blankenship didn’t open a gym. She built a space where women in Texarkana, Texas, could show up exactly as they are — and leave a little more themselves.

Butterfly Fitness Center is a boutique women’s fitness studio offering 30-minute circuit workouts that blend cardio and strength training. The format is approachable by design: members rotate through a series of machines at their own pace, with enough structure to deliver a full-body workout and enough flexibility to meet each woman where she is.

Blankenship opened the doors just over a year ago, drawing on years of experience working at a similar studio and a long-held conviction that Texarkana needed exactly this kind of place.

“I knew Texarkana needed a place where women could work out without feeling intimidated like they might in a traditional gym,” she said.

Getting there wasn’t straightforward. Blankenship spent 15 years running a cleaning business before pursuing this dream. When that path closed, she built Butterfly Fitness from the ground up on her own.

The first year tested her. Blankenship was candid about that.

“I didn’t think I would make it,” she said. “Starting a business is so hard. I went into it thinking it would be smooth — that I’d open the doors and everything would just fall into place — but it didn’t happen like that.”

She marked her six-month milestone in November 2025 as a genuine celebration — not a formality, but proof she had made it further than she’d feared. By the time a Communities Unlimited (CU) staffer stopped by to check in, Blankenship was running on determination but without a clear road forward.

That visit came from Chloe Keahey, a Resource Manager on CU’s Sustainability Team, who connected Blankenship with CU’s Entrepreneurship Team. CU’s work on both the Sustainability and Entrepreneurship Teams in East Texas is made possible by the ongoing support of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation.

CU Senior Management Consultant James Custer took it from there.

Custer’s initial assessment identified two core gaps: Blankenship had no bookkeeping system and her marketing, while consistent, wasn’t converting followers into members. Her Facebook presence leaned heavily on inspirational content — meaningful, but not driving signups.

The work they did together was practical and wide-ranging. Custer set Blankenship up on Wave, a bookkeeping platform, and walked her through transaction tracking, bank reconciliations, and financial reporting. He conducted a benchmark analysis comparing Butterfly Fitness’s performance to industry standards, evaluated her pricing against local competitors, and built out financial projections alongside a strategic growth plan. He also coached her through tools like Canva to sharpen her social media presence.

“We’ve done a lot,” Blankenship said. “Working with Communities Unlimited has been a blessing. Having someone in your corner as a coach and mentor makes a huge difference — especially when you’re trying to figure things out on your own.”

Blankenship said CU’s assistance allowed her to gain clarity of her systems.

“I finally felt like I had someone I could talk to who understood business,” she said. “At one point, I felt like everything was going downhill, but now I have a clear plan.”

Butterfly Fitness is still in its turnaround, but the trajectory has shifted. Membership is growing month over month. The business is on track to break even by May 2026, with Blankenship drawing her own compensation by September of the same year.

On May 1st, she plans to celebrate her one-year anniversary with a vendor event.

Her focus now is straightforward: grow membership. That’s the engine for everything else — additional service tiers, new revenue streams, long-term stability. The pieces are in place. The plan is written.

And Butterfly Fitness, at one year old, is just getting started.