My name is Troy Knowlton. The Crowlodge Elder Society is a group comprised of those who are able-bodied and are interested in participating in activities on the reserve and activities that the centre provides. They do fundraising initiatives for themselves and for some of the other special interest groups on the reserve, whether for cultural, scholastic or athletic endeavours.
In terms of some of the benefits they have, they meet once a week. They develop an agenda for the following month on what types of activities they are going to participate in. They fundraise for these activities, and they travel to different areas within our Blackfoot traditional territory advocating for the Blackfoot people, in recognition of what our territory is.
As I said, most of the people there are of able body. They are aging. I think our oldest member is 92 years old. It's a social group. They have nurses and health care aides who will come in and take their vital signs while they are there, during these activities, to help them identify any problems that may be coming up. They also support each other in wanting to make sure that they are well at home, that their home care is adequate, and that they have somebody there to care of them.
It is a rather small group when you look at the total number of elders because it is voluntary to be there, and we do have a lot of elders who are not able-bodied and are not able to negotiate the type of transportation in order to participate. It is quite centralized, and the elders' stories and wisdom are utilized by our schools, day cares, and so on, in their daily programs.