Lifestyle fair puts spotlight on seniors’ issues

Seniors’ issues will be in the spotlight–from health to investing– when the Seniors’ Lifestyle Fair is held this Friday (June 2) from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Fort Frances Curling Club.
Admission is free, with several prizes up for grabs.
Organized by the Northwestern Health Unit and its community partners, the fair will feature more than 30 information booths, a cribbage tournament (sponsored by the Sister Kennedy Centre), a seniors’ play (“Help Me I’m Falling), entertainment from the Marvin Hele band, and a school choir.
Square dancers and student violinists also will be on hand.
“We have a really good array of booths,” co-organizer Dorothy Poperechny, a registered nurse with the health unit, said Monday.
“We still have a few available spaces if anyone else is interested,” she added.
Nalini Mohabir, community project co-ordinator with the Ontario Coalition of Senior Citizens’ Organizations in Toronto, will be on hand with a couple of workshops geared to healthy aging and active living.
“Some of the topics we’ll be covering are peer advocacy and the word advocacy itself,” said Mohabir.
“Sometimes people have the idea that advocacy means confrontation, rallies, and protests [but] for us, it means building on strength of the community and the support network in the community,” she remarked.
Wanda Botsford of Investors Group also will have a booth at the Lifestyle Fair, with the focus being on estate planning.
“Regardless of your age, health, or financial condition, an estate plan can help deal with the consequences your death will have on your survivors,” she reasoned Monday.
“It makes it much easier and less confusing for surviving relatives if financial and legal documents are organized,” she stressed.
Other booths slated to be set up at the fair include Veterans’ Affairs from Thunder Bay, the Victorian Order of Nurses, Fort Frances Seniors’ Coalition, Fort Frances Remedial Therapy Clinic, an audiologist from the Northwestern Health Unit, Fort Frances Horticultural Society, and Valley Diabetes Education Centre.
“We’ll have a display board of the signs and symptoms of diabetes [and] what the risk factors are for diabetes,” Sarah Ross, registered dietitian and diabetes educator, said yesterday.
“We’ll also talk about the complications of diabetes,” she added.
Felix Blasky and Rooksana Willemsen, food services manager and registered dietitian respectively at La Verendrye hospital here, also will be on hand at the Valley Diabetes Education Centre’s booth to prepare a tasty and nutritious recipe for people to try.
A nutritional analysis of the recipe also will be available.
Seniors who need a ride to the Lifestyle Fair can call the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau at 274-9555.