PENS’s invitation to take to the trails for a breath of fresh air: a great success!

Despite the inclement weather, over 300 people responded enthusiastically to the Parc d’environnement naturel de Sutton’s invitation to get some fresh air on June 10, as part of ParticipACTION’s Community Challenge.

To encourage access to the outdoors and the practice of physical activity, hiking trails were free for everyone that day. And to further encourage those who face additional accessibility challenges, PENS enlisted the help of several community partners whose mission is to provide just such assistance. Thanks to funding from ParticipAction, the Maison de la famille de Cowansville, Solidarité ethnique régionale de la Yamaska (SÉRY) and Le Phare, source d’entraide were able to take advantage of two charter buses from Granby and Cowansville to provide their 68 participants with free, safe and low-emission transportation.

A number of park volunteers accompanied the visitors on two of the network’s most popular circuits: the Village-Montagne trail, and the Spruce Lake loop. Although both routes are identical in length (5 km), the Village-Montagne trail, with its less rugged terrain, was favoured by those less mobile, while Spruce Lake attracted the more motivated.

In the end, everyone left delighted, both visitors and accompanying volunteers, and we promised to do it again as soon as possible.

A big thank you to Christian, Denise, Francis, Loriane, Marie, Mélanie and Patricia for the personalized guiding, to ParticipAction for enabling many to discover the charms of mountain hiking, and to the 324 people whSo responded to the invitation and accumulated 58,320 minutes of physical activity for the benefit of Sutton as part of the Community Challenge.