Skip to content

Castlegar seniors help raise over $5,700 for Alzheimer’s research

Castlegar seniors helped raise over $5,700 for Alzheimer’s research last Thursday.

Castlegar seniors helped raise over $5,700 for Alzheimer’s research last Thursday.

Castle Wood Village held its walk to fight Alzheimer’s Disease and seniors raised $5,770.15 to be donated to the Alzheimer Society of B.C.

Residents from Castle Wood Village were joined by residents from Lake View Village in Nelson and Mountain Side Village in Fruitvale — all three villages are run by Golden Life Management — and they all pitched in to help raise money for the cause.

“We had ladies making crafts, we had the bake sale, we had residents going around getting pledges for the walk,” explained Carol Breakwell, activities director at Castle Wood Village.

Residents also put up posters advertising the walk and knit all kinds of items for sale.

One Castle Wood Village resident raised $1,500 in pledges.

“This is something we don’t usually mention, because everyone works really, really hard to raise the pledges and does such an amazing job, but this year I kind of feel I have to point out one gentleman who lives here. He had already walked 14.5 kilometres, hitting up almost every business in town, and he has $1,500 in pledges,” Breakwell announced before the walk began.

The man in question is Roy Franche.

“Anything to help anybody else is always important for me,” he said. “Doing things for somebody makes me feel better. I can’t do anything. I’ve had to downgrade all my shops and stuff that I used to do for hobbies, and so now all I have left is to volunteer my time, to get a little exercise.”

Franche wants to thank everyone who sponsored him on his walk.

The Castlegar Rebels and the students from Take a Hike participated in the walk to fight Alzheimer’s and served the seniors lunch afterwards.

This year the West Kootenay Kennel Club also attended, bringing some dogs on the walk.

Julie Leffelaar, support and education coordinator for the Alzheimer Society of B.C., was on hand at the event with information about the disease and thanked the seniors for their efforts.

“Your money is well spent and it’s very appreciated by the families because we offer our services for free to them because you do this,” she said.Course on living with dementia offered in Castlegar for the first time

The Alzheimer Society of B.C. is also offering a course called “Shaping the Journey: Living with Dementia” in Castlegar for the first time.

“It’s for people with early symptoms of dementia because sometimes they don’t get a chance to talk about it and talk to other people who are going through it,” explained Leffelaar. “So the program is meant for them and their care partners. And they can plan together, talk about the emotions of it, talk about how to have the best life they can because all of us have our bucket lists and sometimes we need a kick in the pants to get done on that.”

The course will be offered on Thursday, Oct. 5; Thursday, Oct. 12; and Thursday, Oct. 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Alzheimer Society Resource Centre in Room 7 of the Kinnaird Park Community Church.

It’s free and open to anyone from the area.

But the sessions will only go ahead if enough people register in advance.

To register, contact Julie Leffelaar at jleffelaar@alzheimerbc.org or 250-365-6769.