Fitness games would help group home's residents stay active - La Crosse Tribune

Now that everyone is moved in, The Dwelling Place wants to get moving. Sure, its four residents try to walk daily, and some of them swim at the YMCA. But as the weather shifts to winter, getting out for any length of time becomes more of a challenge.

And the three women and one man who call The Dwelling Place home all are developmentally disabled, giving them limited options for exercising elsewhere.

“It would be nice,” house coordinator Michael Krueger said, “to have something at the house that we could utilize.”

Which is why the sister of resident Barb Durst suggested an Xbox 360 with Kinect and perhaps some other sports and fitness games would be a good addition at The Dwelling Place.

Since the Kinect is motion activated, the home’s residents wouldn’t have to struggle with a game controller or remote, Kathi Hansen said from her home near Green Bay.

“It’s a little more natural. It’s one less thing they have to think about,” Hansen said. “They don’t have to worry about the controller in their hands.”

And it would allow the house to develop “individualized and safe ways to stay active,” Hansen wrote in her Three Wishes request.

“To exercise in a fun way,” Hansen said. “And, really, who doesn’t like to play video games?”

The home at 1810 Green Bay St. will mark its first anniversary in January.

It’s based on the L’Arche model of care that incorporates prayer, celebration and time for reflection, Krueger said.

The home was designed to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood, be more like a house than a facility, and make its residents more a part of the community, according to Bridges of Belonging Inc., the local nonprofit that owns the home.

The Dwelling Place has 24-hour staffing, but residents have their own rooms and share kitchen and common areas much as a family would. It is operated by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse.

Durst had lived with her parents and then her father all of her 48 years before moving to The Dwelling Place, Hansen said. Her care had become too much for her father, now 92, who had been involved with Bridges of Belonging from the beginning, she said.

The family’s fears that Durst would struggle to adjust proved unfounded.

“She loves it. From the day she moved in, it became home,” Hansen said.

Construction recently began on the Bill Medland Learning Center in the lower level of The Dwelling Place. Medland, the past president of Viterbo University who died in August, also was instrumental from early on in establishing Bridges of Belonging, Krueger said.

The Xbox Kinect and other exercise equipment would become part of this new learning area, Krueger said.

“These are quality people,” he said. “They deserve quality things.”