The province of B.C. has provided a $150,000 grant to a seniors’ gymnastics program in the city of Delta, encouraging local seniors to socialize, work on their mobility and boost their daily activities.
“We’re super excited that we are able to expand this program through this provincial grant,” said Ana Arciniega, director of the Delta Gymnastics Society, on CTV News Channel Wednesday.
Arciniega said her organization had piloted the program a couple of years ago through a federal grant initiative, but said the expansion answers “that always fun question, ‘What if?’ -- what if we have seniors doing gymnastics?”
Different from the sport of gymnastics famous for the tumbling, flexibility and high-flying feats of human elasticity, Arciniega and her team offer “the activity of gymnastics,” which is “the foundation for all sports.”
“We teach the ABC’s of sports – agility, balance, co-ordination and strength,” she said.
Arciniega said that the program has “proved to have more benefits than we initially expected,” saying that participating seniors experience “camaraderie and laughter” while “encouraging each other.”
“We’re not only building confidence in movement and the competence in regaining those [mobility] skills but the motivation to continue to come,” Arciniega said. “We’ve had seniors come who were lonely and now they come every week and they love it.”
The next steps for the program are twofold -- create a course manual to provide to other gymnastic facilities who want to replicate the program, and the roll-out of other pilot programs in other B.C. communities.
