5/5/2010
After enduring a snowbound winter, residents of Meadowood will travel to the Schuylkill River Trail on March 25 for the first of nine monthly wellness walks.
The Worcester retirement community’s Woods and Trails Committee organizes the walks “to get people out in the fresh air to walk at least two to three miles an hour and push their bodies to get better exercise,” according to Paul Felton, who retired recently as the chairman of the committee.
One of the walkers, Lynne Bartholomew, will be striding with a handmade, monogrammed walking stick that recognized her as the only participant to complete all nine walks in 2009. “I was very pleased, I was much honored,” she says of the tribute.
“We go to marvelous places,” notes Bartholomew, who hopes to attend all the walks again this year. “I grew up in Lansdale, but I went away to college in Ann Arbor, Mich. and stayed there 49 years, so this gives me a marvelous opportunity to get to know my area. I enjoy very much getting to see places around here that I never knew as a young person.”
Felton makes the sticks from branches. They are labeled TWW (Top Wellness Walker) with the year of the award. “They really treasure it, says Felton. “It’s a milestone for somebody who has done the most.”
George Brown, who earned the award in 2005, took part in the program for about 10 years. “It was refreshing,” he recalls. “There was a new trail each time we went out. I thought it was quite interesting.”
Jim Shaw, from Boyertown and a co-winner in 2006, explains, “I’m sort of an exercise nut to start with, and I’m also an outdoors nut. You sort of put the two together on these walks. You get a double jolt. You get the benefit of exercise in the first place, and you also get the benefit of being out there among nature.”
Because Olga Gritz, the recipient in 2008, lived for many years in Maryland, she finds the walks help her to learn about this region. “It’s a pleasure to be outdoors in an area that I’m not familiar with,” she says, “because it’s new country to me. It’s just so great to be out there and look at the woods and the trees and the birds.”
Beginning in the late 1990s, the Meadowood walkers have visited 45 different trails. This year, along with the Schuylkill River Trail, they will travel to the Armentrout-Camp Woods, Wissahickon, Audubon Loop, Perkiomen and Valley Creek Trails, the McKaig Preserve, Green Lane Park and Valley Forge National Historical Park. Meadowood Walkers invite the public to join them on their walks. Call 610-584-1000 for more information.
Felton remains active with the program at age 90. Bill Davison, now co-chairman of the committee with Paul Anderson, says, “We owe a great debt to Paul Felton for keeping this committee functioning at a high level and for keeping people interested.”
Anderson and his wife Grayce joined the committee when they moved to Meadowood from Towamencin Township 15 months ago. “We’ve been hikers and walkers for years so it’s kind of a natural thing for us,” he says. “These walks are a chance to get out to improve your health by walking and to see the beauty of nature that exists in Montgomery County. It’s amazing how many different opportunities for walks there are in this area. This helps make people aware of that and perhaps it even encourages those who are able to go out do some walking on their own.”
The Woods and Trails Committee also maintains a trail at Meadowood plus a nursery, wildflower bed, nut orchard, bluebird nest boxes, a butterfly garden and daffodil plantings.
This year, Davison points out, the committee will plant trees for Arbor Day, clean out overgrown areas and possibly develop an additional trail from Skippack Pike through the woods toward the Health Center.
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