Green Acres Foundation introduces e-bikes for senior residents

Seniors living at Heritage Lodge in Lethbridge got to embark on the inaugural rides of new e-bikes Green Acres Foundation bought for its residents. Four tandem, assisted bicycles were purchased with funds from the foundation’s annual charity golf tournament, with assistance from the Community Foundation of Lethbridge. 

Ruth Schumacher is Green Acres Foundation’s oldest resident at 102 and was the first to ride one of the new bikes, accompanied by Lethbridge police chief Shahin Mehdizadeh. 

“She asked to be the very first resident on these bikes so you don’t argue with a 102 year old,” said Green Acres Foundation CEO Dawna Coslovi. 

Schumacher said she would like to go out again on the bikes, as long as someone else drives for her. 

“It was very nice I mean I could have gone longer,” she said. “It will be nice to have something here for us all so we can go on this.” 

Coslovi said she wants to set up a program so family members can book the bikes out during visits and added the foundation is always looking for volunteers who would take residents out. 

“Not only will they get the exercise, but they get the opportunity to really learn about life and just hear life stories of some amazing residents here,” she said. “This is a really important component for seniors living. We do provide the housing and the necessary services like food, housekeeping, things like this but what we found, especially during the pandemic, social isolation for senior residents is really detrimental to their health so something like this where they can go out on a bike ride, get the fresh air, for some of these people they haven’t been on a bike for maybe 40 years.” 

Mayor Blaine Hyggen took resident Maxine Cawthra for a ride and said the assisted bikes make it easy for anyone to ride. 

“It was wonderful, it was so much fun—we had a bicycle ride for two. It was great,” Cawthra said. “We were going for coffee but we didn’t get that far.”  

The four bikes cost $20,000 each, according to Coslovi and she said she hopes to see them get a lot of use for a long time.