Protage senior center opens new walking trail
Patrons of the Eunice Bonner Senior Center can now add long strolls through a sylvan setting to their itineraries of lunches, art classes, yoga, and socializing. The center on Wednesday opened a
⅓ mile eight-foot-wide paved asphalt trail that winds through open green space along a lush treeline at 5800 Lexington Ave. in Portage.
The wheelchair-accessible trail also boasts five fitness stations with equipment such as leg and chest presses.
“We started three years ago, looking at it, and with COVID, it slowed things down,” said Portage Township Trustee Brendan Clancy. “Anyone’s welcome. We do predominantly serve residents of Portage Township.”
The trail opened with a ribbon-cutting and recitation of a poem composed for the event by Mike Sarkkinen, of Portage.
“Enjoy the company of those meandering with you, the sunshine and alluring beauty of Mother Nature, take delight in conversing during your journey, on your brief saunter around the Bonner Center” his final stanza read.
Those gathered did just that a few minutes later. Patrons Kathleen Tatlock, of Portage, and Anna Harding, a bus driver for the center, tried out one of the first fitness machines on the trail, a leg press.
“I could stay here forever,” Tatlock said after much laughter with Harding, before getting up for the next person in line.
A few pieces of equipment further on, Fayetta Reed, of Portage, gave a chest press a try. She’s one of the members of The Ways and Means Committee, a group of patrons who raise money for such projects at the center. The group purchased one of the five fitness machines along the trail. Also acknowledged for supporting the project were James Hazzard of Samuelson Insurance Agency, Northwest Indiana Community Action, Inc., and Dunes Hospice.
The center serves anyone over age 50 from Portage Township, which has a total population just under 50,000. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those 60 and over may make a lunch reservation for $2. Currently up to 80 folks stop by for lunch each week day and about 120 patrons visit the center each day for a wide variety of offerings from card games, to dance classes, to organized outings.
Center Director Robin Wilkening is excited that some post-lunch walks on the new trail may in turn raise awareness of the center’s garden, which can be seen from the trail.
“That garden produced 700 pounds of vegetables for the Portage Food Pantry,” Wilkening said. “Now, hopefully, when they use the trail they’ll see the garden and get involved in that.”
Center Program Director Jennifer Silkwood said a walking club will be formed soon with group walks three to four days a week.
After the inaugural walk had ended and several members of the Ways and Means Committee were awaiting lunch together, they agreed the trail offered a nice range of fitness difficulty, from a simple, easy walk with plenty of benches along the way for anyone who needed a rest, to a more difficult challenge with the machines.
“The machines were kind of hard,” said Reed.