{"id":33757,"date":"2023-10-26T20:11:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33757"},"modified":"2023-10-26T20:11:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:11:26","slug":"kingsway-place-takes-resident-to-the-edge-the-edge-walk-that-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kingsway-place-takes-resident-to-the-edge-the-edge-walk-that-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingsway Place takes resident to the edge \u2013 the Edge Walk, that is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora\u2019s Irene Surgenor doesn\u2019t shy away from a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in her 90th<\/sup> year, the resident of Kingsway Place Retirement Residence on Murray Drive is still beaming from ear-to-ear after getting a bird\u2019s eye view of the City of Toronto after taking on the CN Tower\u2019s Edge Walk. Now, she\u2019s looking forward to the next thrill to mark her milestone birthday next July \u2013 whatever that might entail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told my kids I would like to go for a glider \u2013 I just dropped the hint,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s either that or zip-lining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her, doing the Edge Walk was a matter of crossing an item off her own \u201cBucket List\u201d and was a dream that was made possible thanks to the care and organization of Kingsway staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping organize the trip was Andrea Lee-Han, Recreation Director for Kingsway Place, who was joined on the excursion by staff colleagues Jacqui Holmes and Gayle Palmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seed of the trip to the Toronto landmark was planted by fellow Kingsway Place resident John Tettman and, once it germinated, it turned into an all-hands-on-deck effort from the team to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started to do a bit of research and found a 98-year-old lady who actually did it twice with her great-grandchildren, so I thought, \u2018Okay, this might be a good thing. We can probably do this,\u2019 and our Executive Director said to go for it,\u201d recalls Lee-Han. \u201cWhen I put posters up, people were like, \u2018Are you serious? We\u2019re doing this?\u2019 Yep, we were doing it. We had never done anything like this before and we were really gung-ho on going for it and we\u2019re so glad we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, I was always gung-ho,\u201d adds Irene, \u201cbecause it was something different. It was a challenge to me, something on the bucket list. I wanted to jump out of a plane and do skydiving before, but they said I couldn\u2019t do it because I had broken bones below my waist \u2013 unless the fellow I\u2019m on his back can put his legs down first!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irene might have been gung-ho, but she was initially concerned her occasional fear of heights would kick in. Thankfully that didn\u2019t happen, and when she stepped out into the fresh air from the safety of the CN Tower, she was greeted with \u201ca beautiful morning, the sun was shining, there was no wind, the lake was calm, and it was just beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally hailing from Belfast, Northern Ireland, she moved to Canada in 1953 \u2013 to a very different iteration of Toronto and, from on high, it was a very different view than the one that first greeted her when she settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sight of condos was not necessarily on the bucket list, but the thrill of the excursion won out; and for Kingsway, that\u2019s really what it is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was something different and outside my normal realm of existence, and my husband and kids were shocked I was going to do it \u2013 I was surprised at myself, really,\u201d says Palmer. \u201cI thought if Irene could do it, I could do it, and I was going to do this for myself. This was very important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Holmes: \u201cI didn\u2019t think I could do it, but I pushed myself. Standing next to Irene, I thought if I can\u2019t do this and Irene can, that\u2019s no good, so I pushed myself and the feeling of exhilaration and accomplishment when you have done something like this was fantastic. This might be a retirement residence, but it doesn\u2019t all end when someone moves in here. We have so many events that Andrea organizes and it is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Lee-Han, it\u2019s all about the experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s something you didn\u2019t have time for when you were bringing up a family, or maybe even finances. It was great to see our community come together and that\u2019s what I want to see. I want to put Kingsway on the map!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s Irene Surgenor doesn\u2019t shy away from a challenge. Now in her 90th year, the resident of Kingsway Place Retirement Residence on Murray Drive is still beaming from ear-to-ear after getting a bird\u2019s eye view of the City of Toronto after taking on the CN Tower\u2019s Edge Walk. Now, she\u2019s looking forward to the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-26-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8Mt","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 16:19:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}