Join Metro, Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation and Kaiser Permanente in celebrating the opening of the new Cornelius Wellness Center with the 2-mile Walk for Wellness fundraiser on Saturday, Oct. 20. The walk, sponsored by Metro and Kaiser Permanente, is free and begins at 9 a.m. at the Cornelius Wellness Center, 1151 Adair St. in Cornelius.
Walk participants will receive a free T-shirt as well as a ¡Vámonos! drawstring backpack that includes copies of Metro and Kaiser Permanente’s new ¡Vámonos! bilingual biking and walking maps for Hillsboro, Cornelius and Forest Grove as well as a reflective leg strap, a pedometer from Kaiser Permanente and more.
Metro and Kaiser Permanente partnered with community groups and local governments in Cornelius, Forest Grove and Hillsboro to create the new ¡Vámonos! maps that help residents discover safe, interesting walking and biking routes in Washington County. The colorful maps, funded through a grant from Kaiser Permanente, are geared to kids and families with a specific focus on connecting with Hispanic families.
¡Vámonos! maps are available at ¡Vámonos! events and a variety of community locations, such as libraries, cultural centers and city offices.
The maps are pocket-sized, easy-to-use and show interesting, safe and expert-tested routes for walking and biking. Part of the Wellness Walk course uses the ¡Vámonos! route, so you’ll be getting a taste of what you can find on the maps.
At the Walk for Wellness you can also see the facility’s new rain garden, developed with a $322,000 Nature in Neighborhoods capital grant from Metro. Metro partnered with Virginia Garcia and the City of Cornelius to transform a blighted alleyway at the new medical campus into a green ribbon of a walkway.
The block-long path is outfitted with permeable pavers, a dozen benches, 16 native trees and as many as 2,500 new plants and shrubs. Bioswales will capture and treat the runoff from the streets and a 720-square-foot rain garden will capture water from the roof.
A focal point of the garden is a rain cylinder, which serves as an artistic sculpture as well as a design solution. These features give the opportunity for the many project partners to visually express their sustainability goals at a highly visual location.
The native plants were installed by Verde, a local non-profit that offers workforce training opportunities to low-income and communities of color. Offering educational opportunities for visitors, architects worked with Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve to create interpretive signs that teach passersby about the water-saving features on campus. Other partners include Adelante Mujeres and Centro Cultural.
After the Wellness Walk, be sure to visit Metro’s booth at the health fair. The booth will feature a trivia wheel with flashing bike, walk safety lights as prizes.