Seniors and their family members will soon benefit from six new physical and familiar education sessions thanks to a grant awarded to the East Haven Senior Center to expand its health and wellness program.

The $3,000 was bestowed upon the Senior Center by the Agency of Aging of South Central Connecticut in late August 2022, according to Bob Petrucelli, the director of the East Haven Senior Center and Social Services. The Agency is one of several partners the Senior Center collaborates with in providing services to its represented elder East Haven residents. Its mission to empower active and independent adults aligns with the focus of the new sessions.

“We were fortunate enough to be one of the towns that were selected to receive a grant,” said Petrucelli. “It’s the first time we’ve received a grant from the Agency on Aging.”

Petrucelli said a major push for the added six classes was witnessing the return of seniors to the department’s building as it reopened existing fitness classes as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic waned. He saw how homebound seniors still wanted to interact with each other to take in-person group fitness classes, which saw higher attendance than before since the onset of COVID.

“Attendance and interest has been through the roof,” he said. “We average between 15 and 40 for our classes, which is wonderful. Through our partnership with the YMCA, they’ve donated chairs to us. We knew people were in their homes a lot of times during that COVID period.”

The additional sessions increase the total number of classes in the center’s health and wellness program to eight, which will tailor the various levels of ability, including chair yoga and mobility classes taught by experienced YMCA-certified instructors.

While the specifics of the six new classes are still being fleshed out, Petrucelli has already established a framework consisting of “mini-subsets of 2-2-2” per carved-out periods during the 2023 calendar year, with the first subset to start sometime in spring.

One of the first subsets of dual sessions will be what Petrucelli calls a “how-to-do-this-at-home” physical exercise series, designed by Senior Center fitness instructor CJ Cofrancesco. Hand-outs, presentations, and video-recorded demonstrations authored by Cofrancesco will teach seniors how to remain active in their homes without much workout equipment and while being creative.

“There’s a ton of things you can do at home…stretching exercises, simple exercises that you can do at home for your arms, your back,” Petrucelli said. “With very simple stuff, you don’t have to go out and buy fitness equipment. You can use small weights, whatever you have there, even if it’s a bottle of water,” Petrucelli said.

A bottle of water will also come in handy as Cofrancesco will use the second part of the subset for luncheon classes to educate seniors on the importance of hydration, sleep, and social interaction, as a way to round out a “focus on people’s bodies and minds,” Petrucelli said.

Along with seniors themselves, the second subset of sessions will be particularly informative for siblings and caregivers of seniors, focusing on issues such as the probate process and assisted living and how sibling children of seniors can handle the finances and caregiving tasks.

“As parents age, the sibling’s role changes,” Petrucelli said. “I think that could be really helpful, and that fits with the grant. We’re going to do a couple specific for seniors, but at least two, I want to target for siblings or caregivers.”

Petrucelli said the details of those topics have not been fleshed out but says the information session for sibling children on the planning and organization of their parent’s financial and housing statuses could prove to be very helpful.

The third and final classes are currently undetermined in their focus areas; however, Petrucelli said attendees’ input would inform the topics at the Senior Center as they unravel over the year.

“I am a big fan, once we get going with this, of an informal survey and talking to people, like, ‘What do you want to see,” he said. “It’s easy for us to sit here and come up with some things, but…I would like to have ideas from folks who have gone through these sessions and see areas of interest to them and how we can best get them that information.”

Overall, Petrucelli anticipates these new sessions will see the Senior Center explore, “a variety of areas, to a variety of people, in a variety of ways,” towards the central goal of improving the well-being, care, and education of East Haven senior citizens, with the right information and practices with its partners.

“We want to get accurate, important information to people with contact information as soon as possible,” Petrucelli said. “There are some really, really creative ways, in addition to the regular hand-outs, that we really hope to be able to provide information to people through this grant.”