ANTIGONISH, N.S. — As part of ongoing fundraising efforts, Keep Well Antigonish is conducting a raffle on a basket of homemade items donated by initiative participants.
“With proceeds from the raffle and the generous donation from Friends of the Antigonish Library (FoAL), we can run a winter program while we wait to hear the outcome of other grant applications,” group president Ann Bigelow said in a press release.
Keep Well Antigonish will have raffle tickets for sale at an information booth Saturday morning (Nov. 2) at the Antigonish Farmers’ Market.
The Keep Well Antigonish exercise and wellness program includes weekly two-hour sessions that are free to seniors. An hour of exercise geared to seniors is followed by an informal social time, with healthy snacks, to promote friendships and connectedness to others. The final hour involves a wellness presentation mixed with discussion that varies weekly.
Since its inception in the spring of 2018, more than 250 seniors have participated in the program.
During a recent session, FoAL representatives visited and made a $1,500 presentation to the organization.
“The work that they are doing is clearly making tangible differences in the lives of many seniors in our community, and we want to see that continue,” Sarah Armstrong, FoAL chair, said.
Bigelow said “we were successful in getting start-up funds for our program, especially since it is modelled after a program that has been running on Vancouver’s north shore for more than 30 years.”
“However getting on-going funding to sustain the program is a challenge,” she added.
Although exercise classes are full for the fall session, interested seniors are welcome to join the social time and wellness programming, at 11 a.m., every Friday in the People’s Place Library community room in Antigonish.
To be added to the email reminder list, contact [email protected]
