Adult Fitness

Adult Fitness: 2023-2024 Highlights

Adult Fitness Participant Numbers

Spring 2023 - Winter 2024: 728 total participants

Volunteers

Fall 2023 - Winter 2024: 275 total volunteers

New Initiative Highlight

Young Adult Advisory Committee

Fall 2023 saw the launch of The Steadward Centre’s Young Adult Advisory Committee. This committee brings together young adults with lived experience of disability, both currently attending and those interested in TSC, to contribute their opinions, preferences, and experiences towards creating more programming options at TSC for young adults.

The purpose of the Young Adult Advisory Committee is to:

(a) Provide advice and guidance to The Steadward Centre in order to develop programming specific to the young adult demographic,

(b) Promote TSC programs and opportunities through their personal networks, and

The Committee met in November 2023 and March 2024, with the next meeting scheduled for July 2024. Meetings have been both fun and productive with the committee providing valuable insights and guidance for young adult programming at TSC: what’s going well, what could be improved, and how to better serve the young adult demographic. There have already been two outcomes from the YA Committee:

Extended evening access hours to the fitness centre, and
Student pricing options available for post-secondary students accessing the fitness centre.

This photo is two different halves. On the left is Sandy as a teenage girl in a yellow shirt, high waisted jeans, and gloves while she wheels her wheelchair on an outdoor race track. On the right is a photo of Sandy today as an older woman while she is working out on a weight machine in her wheelchair and wearing a green athletic top and navy pants

Participant Voice: Sandy Saunders

Sandy first came to The Steadward Centre in 1978- when TSC was just starting out! Sandy was looking for new ways of being active and interested in pursuing sports and athletics that she had always enjoyed. With TSC, Sandy took up wheelchair racing, competing at the national and then international level at the paralympics. Today, as both a busy mom and grandma, Sandy stays active at TSC through the fitness centre, programs and classes:

“I love working out with other persons with varying disability, who are so focused on becoming and staying healthy and strong. We’re all working toward that same goal and every time I leave here, I feel inspired”.

Participant Voice: Evan Murdyk

Evan describes working out at The Steadward Centre with feelings of accomplishment: To push, and push, reaching for the stars and beyond. Evan has been coming to TSC for more than 10 years, and has always enjoyed the feeling of community and inclusion he found at the center.

“I still do meet new people everyday…Old friends and volunteers alike”. On the 45th Anniversary of The Steadward Centre, Evan looks ahead to the next 45 years, “The next 45 years is quite something, 2068!”

His hope and prediction for the coming years is that TSC continues to grow and evolve in its service delivery targeting more facets of fitness and well being.