Williams Lake Celebrated New Community Fitness Park

After 3 years of planning, the Community Fitness Park in Kiwanis Park had its grand opening celebration today (May 28).

President of the Williams Lake Rotary Club, Amber Stratton, said they are very proud to have it open and for people to come and use it.

Stratton said they had a lot of help putting it all together : The City of Williams Lake, Cariboo Regional District, Northern Development Initiative Fund, also BC Alliance for Healthy Living.

We asked Stratton how the idea for a fitness Park came about.

“Past Rotarian Walt Cobb actually brought it to our club one day and said something about a Fitness Park. Originally it started out for seniors and as we got going we thought, you know what, it’s not only for seniors, it’s for everyone in the community. It may have taken awhile in the planning phase but we had the park completed in about a couple of weeks but it took a lot of funding as it’s a $90,000 project.”

Also on hand to help celebrate were fitness instructors from the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Centre giving free workout tips to help park users make the most of the new equipment.

One of those Instructors, April Spurn, said it’s an amazing, free, outdoor area for anyone who wants to work on their fitness.

“You can check out any of the different equipment we have set up. There’s a Q-R Code that you can scan in with your smartphone. That will bring up a YouTube video that will have an instructor showing the different moves on each piece of equipment if you don’t know exactly know how you’re suppose to workout with that piece of equipment.”

Spurn noted that the Fitness Community Park is very user friendly.

“We actually have a couple of pieces of equipment that if you are disabled and you’re in a wheelchair, you can wheel up to that piece of equipment and still use it seated in your wheelchair. Everything can be done at a low impact basis or if you want to increase impact you can do that as well, we offer a little bit for everybody.”

Spurn added the Park is great for the community, it gets people out and active, it’s great for moms and dads that want to bring their kids to Kiwanis Park.

“They can keep an eye on their children while they’re playing and parents can work on their health and fitness.”