TWENTY-FIVE years ago, a group of retired nurses and health care workers started the North Shore Keep Well Society.
Their goal was to provide health and wellness services to seniors. Today, at seven sites from Deep Cove to Gleneagles, Keep Well volunteers see 300 seniors every week.
There are at least three keys to Keep Well's success. One is the blend of services - blood pressure checks, massage, nutrition information - and social connection fueled by coffee and cookies. Next, program volunteers are seniors. When peers help peers, something called "the spark" has been observed at the Keep Well sites, an ephemeral but unmistakable exchange that occurs between the giving and the receiving.
The third factor is Andy Demeule, Keep Well's director of fitness.
All his life, from his boyhood in the Fort Rouge area of Winnipeg to raising his own children in North Vancouver, Andy has been interested in sports and physical activity. For 30 years, in his spare time after work and on weekends, Andy played sports and coached community teams. While volunteering at recreation centres in the early '90s, he became interested in fitness for people with physical and intellectual challenges, a category that included some seniors.
Back then, most adaptive programs, indeed, most fitness programs, were geared towards young people and youthful adults. Once people hit 50, whatever their capacity, there was little available for them in the way of fitness.
Around this time, Andy heard about Doreen Player who ran the SAIL (Seniors Active In Living) program in Burnaby. Inspired by her work, Andy says he "decided to make fitness for older adults my future." He became certified as a fitness instructor and personal trainer and began teaching a range of classes for seniors and people with disabilities at recreation centres in North Vancouver.
Andy's new role dovetailed happily with the existing Keep Well programs. If professionally led exercise classes were added to Keep Well, then they could reinforce the society's goal of encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health.
When Elise Shepherd, then co-ordinator at Keep Well, met Andy, she told him, "Have I got a job for you."
"He met everyone and fit in right away," Shepherd recalls. "Andy's got a very easy, relaxed way with seniors and a great sense of humour. He knows everyone in his classes and pays attention to their needs. Andy lifts people up a little bit every time he shows up but it's a two-way street. He gives a lot and he receives a lot from the seniors."
Andy led five classes every day, five days a week for Keep Well and at community centres across the North Shore until 2007 when, shockingly, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Andy's family and friends, his fitness level - and perhaps some of that spark - supported him through surgery and recovery. His personal and professional fitness routine adapted: he and Max, the family dog, avoid hills during their walks and Andy now teaches one class a day, five days a week for Keep Well.
"I admire the people that make it to class every week. I'd miss my seniors if I did less," he says. "For some of these people, this is the only physical or social contact they'll have all week."
After each class, Andy reminds people to exercise at home, to pay attention to their nutrition and to keep well. "So I can see you for a long, long time," he tells them. "If you're not here next week, I'll presume you're out there doing something really fantastic. We're all fortunate no matter how unfortunate we feel. We're standing. Take a moment to reflect on that."
Andy mingles with each group, talking to this person and that one as people greet each other, sit down for a hand or foot massage, get their blood pressure tested or make their way to the coffee bar.
"I'm just a regular guy trying to do my best to make a difference," Andy says as he leaves the gymnasium in the brightening morning to give a lift home to one of his seniors.
For more information about the North Shore Keep Well Society, call 604-9887115 or visit keepwellsociety.ca.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-2792275 or email her at [email protected].
