By: Sarah Wright | Troy Times | Published January 22, 2025
TROY — The Troy Historic Village walking group will be taking a break during the winter season as they explore different funding and logistical options in order to continue the group’s activities.
With the assistance of Beaumont Health, the walking group has been a part of the Troy Historic Village since the fall of 2018.
“We didn’t do any walks that winter, but picked it up again in April of 2019 when it became a regular weekly program with continued Beaumont grant support and spearheaded by our previous Adult Program Director, Stephanie Arwady (who was a marathon runner and avid hiker),” Troy Historic Village Executive Director Jen Peters said in an email.
Participants would generally meet on every Thursday to walk together on different trails in Troy, including at locations such as the Stage Nature Center and Philip J Huber Park. The group would engage in fitness and health activities during the walking period.
The group was free and would usually take place in the evening.
Troy Historic Village Historical Interpreter Sarah Faist had assisted in leading the group on a few separate occasions and admired the sense of community found in the walking group.
“One of the days I was there, about 15 people were in attendance. Most of them knew each other and I only knew a few as they had volunteered at the village for various events,” Faist said in an email. “Everyone was so friendly! I was quickly introduced by the ones that knew me and felt like I was already part of the group for years.”
According to Faist, the group walked for about 45 minutes. She described what happened during the course of the walk.
“I found myself moving to different parts of the group chatting with everyone,” Faist stated. “I got a feeling of community during the walk.”
Beaumont Health contributed an annual $3,000 grant to support the village’s healthy initiatives programs, including their monthly walking group, summer yoga, summer Saturday hikes, and various fitness challenges from 2020-2023, with the programs offered by the village to guests for free.
However, since Beaumont Health’s merger with Corewell Health, the grant program was stopped in 2024.
“Seeking new funding resources, we gratefully received $750 from the Troy Community Foundation which helped fill the gap, but it was not enough to financially support our ability to continue to provide these programs for free,” Peters stated in a letter to walking group participants. “You may have noticed that we didn’t do any Fitness Challenges or Summer Saturday hikes this past year, and that we had significantly fewer Museum Yoga sessions, too. We are sad to not be able to offer these programs right now because we know they are well loved, but, unfortunately, we do not have the funding. This was something Stephanie and I had talked about this past summer, but we hadn’t made any official decisions until we began planning the Dec-Jan-Feb program schedule.”
Also contributing to the group’s hiatus was Arwady’s departure from the Troy Historic Village.
“Walking Group and other Healthy Initiative programs have been one of the “extra passions” that Stephanie brought with her to her job at the Village,” Peters stated in her letter. “Other staff members bring a passion for theater, science, or woodworking, but Stephanie was our health and fitness guru! While these programs haven’t completely aligned with our mission at the Troy Historic Village, we’ve been happy to have Stephanie explore them with grant support. When Stephanie decided to take another position, it made sense to take a break and wait to see if the next person would hold the same interests or different ones.”
In spite of these issues, the Troy Historic Village has been looking into efforts to continue the walking group by looking into other funding options. However, currently there hasn’t been any success with those efforts.
“Right now we are working with Troy Rec to see if they can pick up this program as it aligns with their mission much more than it aligns with ours,” Peters stated in her email. “This is the most likely move forward with the walking group.”
According to Peters, the group was particularly important during the pandemic. “Even in weeks of bad weather, we would have 5 or 6 die hard walkers,” she stated. “Other weeks we would have as many as 20 or 25!”
Troy Historic Village representatives have informed walking group members of the issues and offered information about continuing as a self-led group if they’re interested.
“So far no one has requested this from us,” Peters said in an email. “Should someone want to continue it, we would have our group Opt-in to a new list because we don’t just hand out personal emails from our programming lists.”
For more information, visit troyhistoricvillage.org.