By ANTHONY BOTTAN
As a coordinator at the Hempstead Senior Center for the Department of Senior Affairs, she works the 9 to 5 shift, setting up events, guest speakers and field trips for the 50-plus seniors who come to the center everyday. All this work and responsibility, at age 75.
I thoroughly enjoy my job, she said. I look forward to coming to work. I love my job.
As a Lynbrook resident for 18 years, Walsh needed something to keep her occupied after her husband of 40 years died more than a decade ago. She worked as a finance reporting officer, but wanted to do something contrary to what she had known her whole life. I decided I wanted to do something entirely different with my life, Walsh said.
She worked at the Hempstead Senior Center when it was owned by the Hempstead School District, and later stayed on as an employee when the Education Assistance Corporation took over in 1992. She said the center is a great place for seniors to exercise, have fun, and build social relationships with their peers. It gets people out of the house to socialize and make friends, she said. It-s a wonderful outlet for people.
One of those outlets seniors enjoy at the center is the chair exercise program, which is run by Lynbrook resident, Anne Moffatt. Certified in aerobic instruction, Moffatt researched and developed the chair exercise program with music from the seniors era. Many of her seniors, she said, have knee and hip replacements, which limits their movement. So while sitting in a chair, Moffatt leads the seniors in the program. She starts with ball stretch movements and stretch band resistance to loosen them up. The seniors then march in the chair in the cardiovascular portion of the workout.
There is no threat that they will lose their balance because they are in the chair, Moffatt said.
Her program lasts about an hour, and it works out several joints, even while sitting in the chair. Now there is no excuse for seniors not to exercise! she said.
Before helping seniors to stay fit, Moffatt was a dancer/actor, and once toured 76 cities throughout the country in a play that starred Patrick Dempsey. She hopes when her three sons are older, she can return to her acting roots and audition for The Irish Repertory Theater.
I would love to be a part of it because it is close to my heart since both my parents were born in Ireland, she said. And I have a bit of the Blarney in me.
