North Lanark Health Centre supports seniors fitness in Snow Road

Sep 10, 2014

Seniors in Snow Road have been keen to stay active and healthy, and four members of the community took the initiative and have been running regular seniors fitness classes at the Snow Road Community Hall.

Recognizing their initiative and in an effort to serve the residents in their western North Frontenac catchment area, the North Lanark Community Health Centre recently trained the four local residents in their seniors fitness instruction program. Sheila Kittle and Carolyn Jarvis recently completed their senior fitness training through the NLCHC and are now holding one-hour classes at the Snow Road Community Hall. The classes take place there on Mondays and Thursdays from 9:30 -10:30am.

On September 8, Kara Symbolic, a community health promoter with the North Lanark Community Health Centre, attended the first official Monday class where 16 seniors were participating. She congratulated the four trainees, two of whom, Sue Sworowski and Laurie Ryder are just finishing up their training and will also be instructing the classes.

The NLCHC serves a large rural population and until now have been serving residents mostly in North Lanark. Symbolic said the NLCHC is unique in that it sends community health promoters and community developers, who work with community members on the root causes of illness and ill health. “We do a lot of health promotion and illness prevention by running programs like fitness classes, cooking classes and mindfulness-based stress reduction classes. We do a lot to help people build their own capacity to prevent sickness and disease from happening,” Symbolic said.

The classes and programs are free and are open to all members of the community. Participants do not have to be clients of the health centre. “People on fixed and low incomes often find it difficult to participate in community life so we have a strong commitment to being able to offer accessible programming for all members of the community,” Symbolic explained. Symbolic is delighted that Snow Road community members are stepping forward to make a healthier community. The classes at Snow Road are geared to seniors and older adults and incorporate a short warm up, 20 minutes of cardio vascular exercise, a cool down, 20 minutes of strength training and some flexibility and balance exercises. Those with specific injuries or particular health issues are welcome and can be easily accommodated in the classes. For more information contact Carolyn Jarvis at 613-278-0696.