It’s early afternoon at the Piedmont Health SeniorCare facility in Burlington and program participants have just finished lunch. Most are sitting in the main gathering area, chatting. Then the music starts. The participants begin walking or rolling their wheelchairs toward a pathway that has been cleared around the gathering area and through the dining room and other rooms.

“Walk and Roll time!” announces Cat Balentine, an occupational therapist at SeniorCare. “Are you coming?” The men and women are soon doing laps around the facility as part of a program to raise funds for charity.

Being elderly and even having limited mobility is no barrier for participants of Piedmont Health SeniorCare, Piedmont Health’s Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), to joining in a charity event. Since October of 2013, SeniorCare participants in Burlington have joined in the Walk and Roll program. The program allows SeniorCare participants to raise money for local nonprofit organizations by doing laps inside the facility – however they are able to do the laps.

SeniorCare employees also participate in the program, which raised more than $3,200 during its first eight months, through May of 2014. SeniorCare has donated the money to various groups, including local chapters of the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross.

About 20 to 30 people participate in the Walk and Roll program during a typical day at SeniorCare. Participants have daily opportunities, Mondays through Fridays, to complete one or more laps in the SeniorCare center.

Shirley Ellington, 76, is among the regular participants of the fund-raising program. She primarily used a wheelchair when she began coming to SeniorCare in August of 2013 but is now less dependent on her wheelchair. She used a walker to complete a few laps during a recent Walk and Roll event.

“This has helped me a lot,” Ellington said, adding that Walk and Roll has helped her feel healthier and stronger. Ellington also said she hopes more participants will join the Walk and Roll events to improve their health while helping the community.

The program began when the center’s staff members wanted to find ways to get more participants walking. SeniorCare already had a small group of participants who regularly walked together.

Balentine, who designed the Walk and Roll program, said having a walking program that helps charities and nonprofit organizations is a great motivator for activity that also appeals to SeniorCare participants, many of whom have spent their lives helping others.

The laps proceed slowly enough so that all center participants can join in.

“We didn’t want to limit the kind of people who could participate,” Balentine said. “Regardless of your abilities, you’re able to join in.”

SeniorCare staff members – with input from participants – choose the organization each month that will receive the money raised by the Walk and Roll program. SeniorCare staff members then donate funds. Some employees make a lump sum contribution, while others donate an amount per each lap completed during the month.

Ellington said the Walk and Roll program is one of the reasons she enjoys coming to the SeniorCare facility.

“I just love it here,” she said. “This place is the most wonderful thing to ever happen to Burlington.”

Piedmont Health SeniorCare of Burlington and Piedmont Health SeniorCare of Pittsboro welcomes new participants to their program. To qualify, a person must be 55 years or older, nursing home eligible, able to live safely in the community at the time of enrollment and live within the service area (Alamance, Caswell, Orange, Chatham & Lee counties). For more information, contact Starlene Chang at changes@piedmonthealth.org or 336-506-0435.