HomeStretch Active Living expanded from B.C. into Ontario in August 2025 with one kinesiologist. One year later, eleven deliver in-home personal training for seniors.
Toronto, Canada (PRUnderground) September 4th, 2026
August marked one year since HomeStretch Active Living Inc. began operating in Ontario. The company, which provides kinesiology-led in-home personal training for adults aged 65 and over, entered the province in late August 2025 with a single kinesiologist and four service regions. It now works with eleven kinesiologists in Ontario, across communities including Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Burlington, Markham, Brantford, Niagara, Dundas, Peterborough, Norfolk County and Thunder Bay. The company continues to serve clients across the Greater Vancouver area, where it started in 2022.
The expansion addresses a gap in how older adults access qualified movement support. While mobile personal training exists in larger Ontario centres, in-home services delivered by registered kinesiologists, who are trained to assess and program for medical complexity, remain uncommon outside major cities. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada's Seniors' Falls in Canada, Second Report, between 20 and 30 percent of Canadian seniors fall each year. Strength, balance and mobility work is widely recognized as a contributor to reducing that risk, yet access to it in the home has been limited.
Founder Melissa Gunstone, a Registered Kinesiologist, expanded the business to Ontario when she moved to be closer to family. She has described the move as the point where the company had to learn to reach people who had never heard of it.
"Up until then, the only way I was growing HomeStretch was by client demand," Gunstone said. "When I would get a customer needing our services in Burnaby, I would then allocate the closest kinesiologist to that client and set them up." In Ontario, that approach did not translate. "However, here I am in Ontario, nobody even knows we are here yet," she said. "So I had to think this one through, and this is where I realized that the SEO, the presence online in searches, is very important to HomeStretch getting clients, to its growth."
Key Highlights of the First Year
From four regions to eleven kinesiologists. HomeStretch entered Ontario with four service areas and has since built a team of eleven registered and practicing kinesiologists working across southern and northern Ontario, including Thunder Bay.
Seven Brain and Balance workshops across six communities. The company's signature community workshop ran seven times in its first Ontario year, in Burlington, Dundas (twice), Port Dover, Simcoe, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay. Some of the workshops are offered at no cost to attendees and are held in community centres and retirement residences.
A hiring model built around local community presence. Gunstone recruits for a role she calls the Builderkin: a kinesiologist who grows their own region by connecting with the community around them. In practice that means setting up a booth at seniors fairs, leading warm-ups at local fundraising events, and offering educational presentations in retirement residences. Gunstone has served as the stretch and warm-up leader at the Alzheimer Society's annual Forget-Me-Not Golf Tournament.
"We learn a lot by doing these things in our own community," Gunstone said. "We learn about the audience. Who is being called to walk up to our booth? What kind of questions do they have? What kind of people are we attracting? It also gives the families of seniors something to think about."
A focus on career pathways for kinesiology graduates. Gunstone, who graduated from Western University in 2021 and worked as a physiotherapy assistant before founding the company, built HomeStretch partly as a response to the field-work options available to new kinesiology graduates. The company pays above typical entry-level clinic rates and runs monthly paid education sessions, bringing in outside presenters on topics such as in-home assessment technique and supporting clients living with dementia.
Longer-term client work. One Ontario client began working with HomeStretch after a health event left him largely housebound, relying on a walker and moving only a few hundred steps a day. Over six weeks of twice-weekly, 45-minute sessions at home, he rebuilt enough strength and confidence to move more comfortably through his day. He continues with HomeStretch on a biweekly basis to maintain the routine.
Looking ahead
HomeStretch Active Living continues to expand its Ontario coverage and its community workshop program through 2026 and into 2027.
Learn more: https://www.homestretch4seniors.ca
About HomeStretch Active Living
HomeStretch Active Living Inc. provides kinesiology-led in-home personal training, fall prevention and balance programming, and pre- and post-operative rehabilitation support for adults aged 65 and over. Founded in Vancouver in 2022 by Registered Kinesiologist Melissa Gunstone, the company operates in British Columbia and, since August 2025, across Ontario. Its team of registered kinesiologists delivers one-to-one sessions in clients' homes and runs Brain and Balance community workshops.
Media contact and inquiries
Melissa Gunstone, Registered Kinesiologist, Founder
HomeStretch Active Living Inc.
melissa@homestretch4seniors.ca
+1-519-427-4522
Public Health Agency of Canada. Seniors' Falls in Canada: Second Report. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/seniors-falls-canada-second-report.html
Release prepared and distributed by Wondering Concierge on behalf of HomeStretch Active Living Inc.
