Recap of CWAM activities in 2025

 For our third year in operation, this was an exciting year for CWAM as we spread our rides between the two Verve facilities in Port Credit, our original home at Port Credit Residences (championed there by Lifestyle Enrichment Manager, Justine Beard) and The Shores of Port Credit west of Mississauga Road also on Lakeshore.  Lifestyle Enrichment Manager, Eryn Perrow, was one of our first passengers in 2024 with her grandmother who is also a resident there.  Both the General Managers of the homes, Parry Lawrence (PCR) and Neil Montalban (SoPC) were also very supportive of our program.

As in 2024, this year we assigned Tuesdays and Thursdays of the week for rides (leaving me a two and a half day work week at the hospital reserving Wednesday evenings for our grandsons!), moving the trishaw between the homes as we worked out which schedule would allow us to provide meaningful coverage without too much shuttling.  We also created alternative routes from each home for those who had already ridden the regular routes.  From PCR we rode to the Adamson Estate and back via Forest Ave.  From SoPC we created a westward route to admire the Bruekener Rhododendron Gardens in bloom.  Both routes turned out to be extremely popular with our passengers.

The first test ride of the season was early May to take my sister, who was visiting from California, out to the waterfront for a ride together with my wife, Lisette.  A few days later I gave an introductory presentation to the residents of PCR explaining the program to create some interest.  Our first rides out of PCR were on a chilly day with eager passengers June & Ken signing up for the first ride of the day.  New residents Rudy and Maureen also enjoyed an impromptu taste of the waterfront that day.

In June we did our first planned 'Destination Ride' for Chartwell Robert Speck with Nadine driving four residents down to Port Credit.  We met at the eastern end of the route from Elmwood to Brueckner Rhododendron Park where two passengers rode westward along the entire route while the other two drove on to the Park and explored.  We then exchanged passengers at Brueckner and rode back to meet Nadine at Elmwood.  It went off just as planned so that we could now offer these rides to other homes in Mississauga for either a morning (10:30a - 12:30p) or afternoon (1:00p to 3:00p) shift thereby expanding our services beyond the homes in Port Credit.

We took a break at the end of June and into the middle of July for a bucket list trip to Europe, visiting Prague, Bucharest and Vienna with a river cruise between the last two.  It was an exciting visit to several countries and cities that we had never seen before.

We had our first canine passenger, Milo, ride with his owner and friend along our regular route in August.  Then an opportunity to carry our second dog, Ben with his owner Patti who was a new resident of PCR along our alternate route to the Adamson Estate.

The highlight of our rides this year was an extended ride from PCR across the bridge into Saddington and back to celebrate Lori's 100th birthday.  We had fun along the way, the best of which was getting a group of construction workers on their lunch break to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Lori!