Tri-Village seniors of all abilities can benefit from a variety of programs offered by local municipalities.
Upper Arlington seniors can enjoy a five-pronged set of programs revolving around the Senior Center. Grandview Heights’ smaller senior program is a branch of the Parks & Recreation Department, and some UA programs also serve Grandview residents.
Upper Arlington
Sally Gard, director of UA’s senior center for 25 years, works hard – along with an advisory council, staff, volunteers and center members – to keep programming ever-evolving and interesting to residents.
“Stagnate and you’re going to die on the vine,” Gard says.
Highlights of the new fall activities include disc golf at Griggs Reservoir Park, Tai Chi and Pilates Fusion. And exercise is not all that’s new; there will be a fused glass class, Apple computer and extensive iPhone and iPad classes, two levels of advanced Spanish, and a seminar about skin care by a plastic surgeon.
Standard classes on the fall agenda include line dancing, yoga, cribbage, table tennis, exercise and computer skills. In Studio 55, seniors can make use of an extensive array of fitness equipment purchased with donated funds. An ensemble plays tunes with keyboards and other instruments, sometimes entertaining area nursing homes.
In one room, a group of men chat as they carve and sand various wood projects. Rick Trammer of Grandview is sanding a feather that is part of the statewide Fallen Feather Project to create a memorial for more than 300 Ohioans who have died in recent Middle Eastern wars, he explains. The group once made 60 canes for patients at the Chillicothe Veteran’s Administration Medical Center.
Gard is also chairwoman of the Upper Arlington Commission on Aging, a nonprofit body that supports several programs within and outside the center. These include Kind Call, which makes automated daily telephone calls to check on an estimated 70 residents at designated times and dispatches police or medics if they don’t answer, police or a medic is dispatched; Project Lifesaver, which provides radio-frequency wristbands to about 10 residents with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease who live with caregivers; and File for Life, which provides magnetic pouches for helpful medical and emergency contact information to be attached to refrigerators for medics during health emergencies.
In cooperation with the center, the commission sponsors a monthly Fitness Trek at Sunny 95 Park with a health and wellness speaker, a continental breakfast and a voluntary walk; a yearly sandwich stroll in the park to collect luncheon items from several stations; balance classes; and senior service Saturdays, when volunteers do simple property maintenance chores for a person who cannot.
Stay UA, a separate community service supported by a National Church Residences grant, provides an adviser three days a week to visit stressed older residents who have called the fire department seeking help and let them know how to find help for needs such as housekeeping and yard maintenance. The Upper Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s Life Care Resource Group sponsors biannual forums with speakers and booths to advise residents on available health care services.
Finally, Syntero, the newly configured Northwest Counseling Services, is available for such issues as mental health.
“It’s interesting how (the five programs) have evolved to meet all these needs,” Gard says.
Grandview Heights
Grandview’s senior programs are spearheaded by Marta Durban, senior coordinator and recreation supervisor. Durban has been with the city since 1978; her late mother, Joann Warnke, started the seniors’ art program in 1976.
The Grandview Center, the hub of recreation activity in the city, has one room for large classes and some smaller spaces for other activities. Its part-time instructors are all certified professionals.
“We run 100 programs through that one room,” says Durban. “We’ve got the need, but we don’t have the budget” (to expand).
Senior programs include long-running classes that focus on core muscle exercise, yoga, art, dance and card games such as euchre and pinochle, as well as newer offerings such as chair volleyball and Wii bowling. The chair volleyball players often travel to other Columbus-area centers for matches against other senior teams – just one of the ways in which Grandview works with local centers to broaden its seniors’ options.
“Every center offers something different,” Durban says.
Beyond classes, the Grandview Center also hosts dances, flu shots, blood pressure checks and an annual lifeline screening aimed at stroke prevention.
A relatively new and popular activity in Grandview is the Volunteer Club, a group of about 70 seniors who help at most public events in the city, including the Taste of Grandview, the Columbus Marathon, the Pumpkin Run, Music on the Lawn and the Tour de Grandview.
In addition to her administrative duties, Durban conducts exercise classes three times a week at the center. She’s an understanding instructor; she usually starts classes about five minutes late to give students time to talk beforehand, and she works hard to explain all the exercises along the way.
She explains each exercise and chats as she goes. About one, she says, “This doesn’t make your waist smaller. Don’t you wish it did?”
Going along, as he has done in each of Durban’s classes for decades, is 88-year-old Tony Petrella, a 50-year Grandview area resident. Even though he’s slowed with leg problems, necessitating use of a cane, Petrella teaches a class of his own: a twice-weekly course called “Tony’s Stretches.”
Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
