February 4, 2010
Elders hit their stride with Sound Steps Program, run by UW graduate student
Marigrace Becker will pick up her UW master’s degree in social work next month, but she isn’t planning to look for a job as a social worker. Instead, she’ll stay where she is, running the Sound Steps Program for the City Parks and Recreation Department.
In fact, she’ll be busy over the next few months helping volunteers put on the third annual Sound Steps “Spring Training” — a walking program that includes weekly training walks and three increasingly long walking events. Two training kickoff events are planned in different locations Friday and Saturday, Feb. 5 and 6.
Sound Steps, Becker explained, began six years ago as a grant from the Centers for Disease Control that was designed to reduce the incidence of obesity and diabetes in people over 50 by encouraging exercise. At first, walking groups were organized through community centers, but now the groups are all over the area — operating out of parks, churches and senior centers as well as community centers. Becker has worked with Sound Steps for four years.
“I enrolled in the social work program because I wanted to gain skills in community organizing and in working with older adults,” Becker said.
In fact, although she’s only 29, Becker has found a passion in working with elders. It all started shortly after she got her bachelor’s degree and went to Zimbabwe. “It struck me how much more respect elders got there, and how much more integrated into society they were,” she said.
She returned to Seattle and began working with a program called Intergenerational Innovations that pairs older people with youth. That did it; she had found her calling. The job with Sound Steps followed, along with the graduate program.
Sound Steps walking groups operate year round, Becker explained, but Spring Training challenges participants to kick the walking up a notch. Training begins in February for three events:
- St. Patrick’s Day Walk, up to 3.1 miles, March 13
- Green Lake Loop, 3.1 or 6.2 miles, May 1
- Lake Union Loop, 6.2 or 13.1 miles, June 26
Participants do weekday walks on their own, then join a longer group walk on Saturdays. There are four groups available — based in the Ballard Senior Center, the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, the Rainier Community Center and the Jefferson Community Center. Although the program is designed for those over 50, it is open to anyone, Becker said. The training is free, but the events have a modest registration fee to cover costs.
Kickoff events are scheduled for 1–3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, at Greenwood Senior Center, 525 N. 85th Street and 9:30 a.m.–noon Saturday, Feb. 6 at Van Asselt Community Center, 2820 S. Myrtle Street. They’ll include talks on relevant topics, a short walk and refreshments. Participants need not attend the kickoff, but they should complete a registration form that can be obtained by e-mailing Becker at sound.steps@seattle.gov.
Becker can tick off many success stories from the Sound Steps program. One man, for example, came to the program after two heart attacks. “He started out as the slowest walker in his group, but he went on to complete the half marathon,” Becker said.
The oldest walker in the program is 89 and has completed the half marathon all three years.
Barbara Petite’s story is equally laudable. The secretary senior in UW Libraries’ Monograph Services Division has been walking and hiking for many years, but since a bout with breast cancer seven years ago she looks for ways to stay active and healthy, so when she learned about Sound Steps Spring Training three years ago, she immediately signed up. She’s been on the committee that helps to plan the program the last two years.
Petite describes Spring Training this way: “You have camaraderie. You have people around you who are doing the same thing. It lets you know you’re not alone. In my case, I’m single, I live alone, my kids are grown, I have to go out and look for people to do things with. Bottom line, it’s fun.”
As for Becker, she got a nice confirmation of her work when she went on a UW Exploration Seminar called Health and Aging in Switzerland last summer. Led by Nursing Professor Basia Belza, the course included a field component in which students were paired with an English-speaking older adult who lived in or around Basel.
“The Swiss have an increasing population of older people,” Becker said, “and everything there is structured to make walking the preferred means of transportation.”
