The Portage Rotary Club received a presentation about the upcoming Minds In Motion program coming to Portage la Prairie this fall. Minds In Motion program manager Maria Matthews gives an outline.

"It's a program for people and their families who are experiencing the early to mid stages symptoms of dementia. They will be able to come out to the community and enjoy a weekly program for two hours once a week for eight weeks, with either their spousal partner, adult child or community friend. Our program consists of basically three components. It's about 45 minutes of fitness or physical activity."

She shares their schedule for Portage.

"This program actually rolls October 17th from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. It'll go for eight consecutive weeks. We'll be bringing it back for early January for a winter session, and we'll see one more session in the spring. And then we'll take a look at how it went. We know in Winnipeg we're experiencing over 52% of our registration return for a second session, and over 25% of the registration will return for at least three sessions."

The program costs $58, and Matthews says they're committed to keeping it at that affordable rate.

Matthews adds, "We're seeing a high level of need in communities. Families are recognizing the significance of really focusing on doing things together -- things that we used to do together and have fun, and not worrying about what doesn't go right. But focusing on what still does go right. And those are the types of connections that we look to foster in the room at the program."