Active Aging Week Aims To Involve

The first annual Active Aging Week kick-started Monday morning with the Holy Cross senior exercise at the Greenbelt Community Center Gym.

According to Karen Haseley, therapeutic recreation supervisor, Holy Cross exercise class cannot be joined unless participants have a doctor's approval, but for the event's purposes only a waiver had to be signed for this trial. She said there were so many participants this morning, they outgrew the studio and had to move to the gym.

"We're just trying to get people healthy, get them away of what's available here and raise our attendance," Haseley said.

The week features new and old classes available at the center without any fees, all promoting exercise, healthy eating and improving mental health too with events like Get Wii Active and Nutrition Questions Answered by Kim Rush Lynch.

Get Wii Active is one of the older classes and began out of popularity at the Green Ridge House about a year ago, so another system was bought for the community center and a league formed. The league was so popular they held a Wii Bowling tournament last May against the Green Ridge House league.  The group of players now meet every Monday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., but this is not the standard time as it will probably change in October.

Active Aging Week is not only for Greenbelt seniors, there are activities available for all ages and one especially to bring both young and old together.

"Friday, we have our From Sidewalk Chalk to the Wii event from 6:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. where we hope seniors and kids will teach their games to each other," Haseley said. "We're going to have a lot of strategy games that night; Checkers, Chess, but also Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Mah-Jong. There's a lot of games that you just can't find anywhere but a special family game store."

Haseley said the community center plans on hosting this event every year.