Community support sought for outdoor gym at Stratford All-Wheels Park

The next phase of development for Stratford’s All-Wheel Park will be aimed at creating a free, accessible and welcoming space for residents of all ages and abilities to exercise outdoors.

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Having recently received approval from the city, All-Wheels Park founder and developer Bruce Whitaker has launched a fundraising campaign with a goal of $110,000 – for which Whitaker will match every dollar raised – for the purchase of equipment and installation of an outdoor gym at the northwest corner of Shakespeare Park in Stratford, directly adjacent to the All-Wheels Park’s pump track.

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“We’ve had five stages (of development) so far,” Whitaker said. “The first one was the skate park. We had the pump track, we had the section for young kids and bikes, we had an expansion of the skatepark and then we had the rain gardens. So the next stage is going to be a gym. … The interesting thing about the All-Wheels Park community is we’ve seen it evolve where it started off as just skateboarders and then it grew to include bikers, and then we saw young kids that were learning from the older kids, and now we ‘re starting to see parents who are hanging out there because they became more comfortable.

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“So it became this idea of, ‘Why can’t this be a family park where the adults can also be doing something?’”

Intended for anyone who wants to get in shape, the gym will be based on the concept of calisthenics – a form of exercise that uses a person’s bodyweight and, at most, requires only basic equipment. For this outdoor gym, Whitaker hopes to purchase and install equipment with little to no maintenance requirements like workout benches, pushup and pullup bars, and parallel bars. The gym would also be built among the park’s trees to provide shade and relief from the heat in the summer. Whitaker is also consulting with Stratford’s accessibility advisory committee to ensure the equipment usable by as many people as possible.

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“I was having a coffee in Balzac’s this morning and I was mentioning this to a gentleman who is 66, and he said, ‘Wow, I’m going to use that,’” Whitaker said. “And that’s the whole idea. We want the park to be diverse. We don’t want the park to be ageist. We want the park to be a place where you can come in and it’s not gated. It’s open to the community. We’ve always promoted it as the center of our city, and that’s what we want it to become – something that can be used and enjoyed by everyone.”

Whitaker said he will be partnering with a local charity in the coming weeks to ensure donations for the outdoor gym will be eligible for charitable tax receipts. In the meantime, he said anyone who would like to learn more or inquire about supporting the cause can contact him by email at [email protected].

[email protected]

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