Taking part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony are, from left, Justin Ray, field representative for U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin; Paul Thornton, Vienna development director; Roger Conley, Vienna city councilman; Ann Johnson; Bruce Holmes, Parkersburg Area Community Foundation; Bruce Rogers, Vienna city councilman; Bob Stephens, retired president of the McDonough Foundation; Linda Kern, event coordinator and exercise instructor; Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp; Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce; Jill Parsons, president and CEO of The Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley; Bob Boone, president of the McDonough Foundation; Cynthia Drennen with Sisters Health Foundation, Wilma Bailey, and John Coffman, Tim Coffman and Zac Cybulski, all with Phoenix Associates. (Photos by Jeffrey Saulton)

VIENNA — This time last year the lot where the Vienna Senior Health and Wellness Center is located was a parking lot next to a cramped Vienna Senior Citizen Center.

However, on Tuesday the health and wellness had its official first day and ribbon cutting. Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp said a lot of the credit for the expansion goes to City Councilman Bruce Rogers and to Linda Kern, who leads the exercise classes at the center.

“I think this is one of the best additions we have ever done in the City of Vienna, and I’m so happy when I see people came and they are just having fun,” he said. “I came here on New Year’s Eve and at about 11 p.m. there were 30 people here playing cards and if it hadn’t been for the center they would have probably been at home, probably by themselves, so having a facility like this in use is a blessing for our town.”

Kern said she took the idea of the health and wellness center to the mayor about two years ago.

“I told him I want to keep every senior in their homes longer, healthy and happy, and I want them to be able to still drive and get here and he believed in me to start the chair exercise programs and we started in the activity center,” she said. “We were in the front of the room with three people.”

Vienna City Councilman Bruce Rogers and Linda Kern, event coordinator and exercise instructor at the center, watch during the opening ceremony of Vienna Senior Health and Wellness Center adjacent to the Vienna Senior Center on 29th Street Tuesday. (Photo by Jeffrey Saulton)

From there, Kern said, the program began to grow by word of mouth and the numbers grew many times over.

“We grew very fast, so I decided to clean the upstairs out,” she said. “I went up there by myself and cleaned it all out.”

That was the only place left for the program to accommodate 50 people, but after they moved to the second floor, the exercise program kept growing.

“We filled it up pretty quickly and I didn’t know where we would go,” she said.

Kern said she was lucky to have Bob Stephens, the past president of the McDonough Foundation, in her class and he said he could help her get a new building.

Mayor Randy Rapp speaks at the opening of the Vienna Senior Health and Wellness Center on Tuesday. (Photo by Jeffrey Saulton)

“Bob said Linda we are going to get you a bigger building,” she said. “The need is here; the healthiness and the happiness, the need is here for our seniors and I’m going to help you.”

Kern said they got more support from the Sisters Health Foundation, the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation and other donors.

Ida Mae Blair, the president of the Vienna Senior Center, said what has become the senior center began as a satellite club of the Wood County Seniors Center, meeting at Wayside United Methodist Church Parish House and then they moved to St. John United Methodist Church.

“In 2006 we finally found our home here,” she said. “It has meant a lot to those who exercise, it means a lot and I’d like to thank the mayor and many others.

“We have a wonderful place and we do appreciate this,” Blair said.