ON A MISSION FOR FITNESS
New equipment unveiled downtown
The Downtown Mission Wellness Centre is embracing its mind, body and spirit approach with the addition of a fitness facility.
Mission executive director Ron Dunn said when the wellness centre at 875 Ouellette Ave. opened last year the goal was to offer a fitness centre. On Wednesday, the Cameron Robert Bell Fitness centre, filled with cardio and resistance equipment, opened its doors.
“We are all about mind, body and spirit,” he said. “We have the spirit covered, we have lots of programs to help work on people’s mental health and now we have the physical aspect.”
Dunn said the idea for the fitness centre came after visiting different agencies across Canada and the United States. Most had fitness centres incorporating programs like boxing, Zumba and yoga for its clients.
Dunn hopes to add programs as the centre progresses. The centre is a partnership between the mission and St. Clair College Applied Arts and Technology. College students will staff the centre and assess participants’ limitations, needs and goals to build tailored programs.
“It gives the people we serve a chance to work on their overall wellness,” he said. “People who are in our recovery programs, folks from the wellness centre and people from the community who don’t take advantage of any of our other services and are looking for an opportunity to be fit and well — we have a full-service gym here.”
The room filled with rowing machines, stationary bikes, elliptical trainers and treadmills along with resistance equipment, weights and yoga mats was donated by Dr. Robert Bell, whose grandson, Cameron, loved Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
“He suffered from addiction issues and how he dealt with it was through physical fitness,” Dunn said. “Unfortunately, Cameron succumbed to his addiction in 2017, so it’s very fresh. Dr. Bell contacted us and this is what he wanted to do.”
The Phoenix Recovery Program currently operates on the same floor as the fitness centre. Dunn said the plan is to build the gym and physical fitness into their existing programs. Also the Enterprise programs, for people with barriers to employment, will have access to the gym.
“It’s all about teaching people to refocus and maybe even reset,” he said. “We all have goals and it’s that time of year. So I think it’s a great time for us to launch. If we can replace habits with some new habits, it’s a great start.”