For many older adults living in rural KFL&A, the barriers to staying active and connected are real. Classes may be far away, transportation can be limited, and the kind of social infrastructure that helps people feel part of something can be hard to find. Katherine Taylor wants to change that.

Taylor is a kinesiologist with the Rural Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Allied Health Team at Kingston Community Health Centres. For seven years, she has delivered exercise and education programs for older adults across the region. When she saw how quickly her Napanee-based classes filled up, she knew there was unmet need beyond the city.

A grant from the Community Foundation gave her the resources to do something about it. The funding allowed her team to hire Active Living Facilitator Carly Corrigan, who now delivers programs across nine rural communities, including Sydenham, Newburgh, Arden, and others across the KFL&A region.

Each weekly session runs two hours. The first hour focuses on the Otago Exercise Program, a series of strength and balance exercises designed to reduce frailty and prevent falls. The second hour is devoted to social connection: coffee, conversation, games like Scattergories and life-size Yahtzee, and presentations from community health professionals covering topics like bone density, pelvic floor health, and nutrition. It is this combination, Taylor says, that makes the program distinctive: the Otago exercises are well established but pairing them with structured social connection and community health education is something other regions could consider adopting.

Participants are referred through a network of approximately 28 physicians or can self-refer through community posters. The average participant age across the first two cohorts was around 72. Since launching, the program has reached close to 300 participants, with rolling attendance across all nine locations.

Taylor is also expanding the offering, bringing Strong Bones, a 13-week program focused on bone density, into select sites alongside Otago. And the data being collected is the foundation of her PhD research at Queen's University, where she is building the evidence needed to advocate for permanent, provincially funded delivery of programs like these across Ontario.

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