Orange Human Resources Manager Lena Taylor stands with the group of Orange High School student volunteers, a member of the Orange Police Department, Sharon Bagley and others on Saturday, Sept. 30, at the Fall Into Fitness event that in the Orange Housing Authority’s Walter G. Alexander public housing complex at Wilson Place.
ORANGE, NJ — Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren and City Council organized the Fall Into Fitness health and wellness event on Saturday, Sept. 30, in the Community Room of the Orange Housing Authority’s new Walter G. Alexander Village, a public housing complex, on Wilson Place.
Close to 100 residents attended the event, and Orange Human Resources Manager Lena Taylor said this positive reaction was the reason the council decided to hold it.
“We are at the end of our Fall Into Fitness 2017 program for the employees and the city of Orange residents,” said Taylor on Saturday, Sept. 30. “As you can see, earlier today, I was peppy, I had a lot of step. Now, I’m exhausted, because when you’re exhausted, it means you worked hard and, if you worked hard, it’s because it was a success.”
“We gave away three bikes; we gave away some Fitbits; we gave away some Smart Blenders; we gave away pedometers; and we had the Orange Police Athletic League and the Orange High School Student Council and ROTC helping us out,” Taylor said. “Based on the food we had left, we had over 100 people that attended and it was really great. We had a really good time.”
Orange native Sharon Bagley was at the event to help out. The mother of former Orange High School standout football player Michael Bagley, who was shot and killed on Taylor Street in 2012, went on to help found the Not Orange Anti-Violence movement in his name.
“I’m here today at the Fall Into Fitness event. Pretty much I’m from St. Michael’s Medical Center. I operate Mobile Mike, which is a mobile unit, where I’m part of the Community Outreach Team and we do HIV counseling and testing on the mobile. It’s open to the public, it’s free (and) if you don’t know your status, come on and find out what your status is.”
Taylor said there were plenty of other screenings available at the Fall Into Fitness event, as well as exercise activities, and health and wellness information.
“We had the Greedy Vegan; we had a fitness program that gave an awesome, awesome presentation,” said Taylor. “They are actually at Central Playground at 1:30 p.m. every Saturday. They showed us some great exercise to do. We had a presentation from Medicaid and they talked to the seniors and told them about Medicaid. We had our Orange Finest helping out assisting with public safety. It was just a great, great time. It was our first event. We will try to make sure it’s an annual event, but it was a great, great time. We don’t have anything scheduled yet, but please check us out on the city website at www.ci.orange.nj.us.”
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