Doing Church

Foothills Mennonite Hosts Senior's Exercise Group

with Erwin Strempler, Visitation Pastor at Foothills Mennonite

In the fall of 2015 members of the neighbourhood community association asked if they could use our lower auditorium for a group of seniors for an exercise program. Kate Janzen was the Outreach Trustee at the time helped facilitate the request. Two University of Calgary students volunteered to be in the instructors. Rudy Wiens and I (left), Foothills members, volunteered to set up the chairs, make coffee and clean up for the weekly morning session.

In the meantime, this early group effort has become an important time for a church to connect in a great way with our wonderful community. Various instructors have made the hour of exercise a healthy preoccupation for seniors in our neighbourhood community.

Several people have reported that the exercises have helped in a number of ways. In my case, when we started I usually had to sit down for part of the exercises when we did not use the chairs to hold on. With my age and mild diabetes, I had a balance problem when we started. Now after getting four years older, I can do those exercises when we do not use chairs, and the question of balance is nearly gone, at least significantly reduced.

Looking over the many name tags we have used since 2015, there must have been over 80 people from the community who have joined us at one time or another. The average weekly attendance is 20-30.