Do you have a Senior Activity Center near you to visit?

Paco Dennis

Paco Dennis

SF VIP
Location
Mid-Missouri
Recently I have been feeling the urge to be around others who are seniors. To talk and do some activities that we enjoy. I found the "Columbia Senior Activity Center". It is about 36 miles from here round trip, which is about $12 gas. I visited there this last week and it was really nice. This is a short video of the Center...


Here is their web page for more information:

https://www.comoseniorcenter.org/

If you have a Senior Center is your area please share what it is like. :)
 

Our Senior's Centre is 2 blocks away. We took a tai-chi beginner's class there. It has a good variety of exercise classes for all levels. There's bridge and other card games for members who just want to drop in and meet others. They have guest speakers who give talks on finance, etc.

The cafeteria is a great place for a low-cost meal - $6.00 for a main, sides, beverage & dessert. Our membership is due .. have not been there since Covid hit.

https://www.nyseniors.org/
 
Our senior center is at a local church now. It has moved about three times in the last four years. I have never gone. On the website they give you the menu for each day. Doesn't sound like anything I would want to eat. The suggested donation is $3.00 per meal but they will not turn anyone away if they do not donate. One of my neighbors goes there with his friend but not daily. I see you have to make a reservation a day in advance. It says they have activities but does not say what.
 

Pinky said:
Our Senior's Centre is 2 blocks away. We took a tai-chi beginner's class there. It has a good variety of exercise classes for all levels. There's bridge and other card games for members who just want to drop in and meet others. They have guest speakers who give talks on finance, etc.

The cafeteria is a great place for a low-cost meal - $6.00 for a main, sides, beverage & dessert. Our membership is due .. have not been there since Covid hit.

https://www.nyseniors.org/
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It looks very organized and offers a lot of variety. I have been wondering about the safety of going because I am still concerned with Covid/mutations. Do you think you will start visiting again?
 
My nearest is only a few minutes away. I went a few times but it wasn't my cup of tea. It was mostly comprised of widows huddled together and a few guys I had nothing in common with. I went to another further away and found a few guys I could throw the bull with, but covid kept me away and I have not been back since. The food wasn't bad and it was stuff I never could make myself. I should go back once in a while.
 
Paco Dennis said:
It looks very organized and offers a lot of variety. I have been wondering about the safety of going because I am still concerned with Covid/mutations. Do you think you will start visiting again?
Click to expand...
We might go back, but not before Covid is well and truly gone.

I used to go to a visiting dental-care service there, for a cleaning. Much lower cost than a regular dentist. Of course, that service is not available now.
 
I've been griping about this in another thread but my area only has an Area Agency on Aging, which is mostly to try to help seniors with problems: filling out applications for seniors apartments, rides to doctors appointments, etc. This town has never had a seniors center, a place for seniors to just gather & relax and socialize, etc. A lot of the much smaller towns around here have seniors centers and a lot more (like, any!) seniors activities than we do; I've heard it's because this is a university town. I think that's at least one of the reasons: when I look at meetup.com, all of the activities listed (and some I've attended), the members all appear to be in their 20s, maybe 30s. When you put in "senior" as a search term for meetup in this town, nothing comes up.
 
Fortunately, Senior Centers (as well as public libraries) are in my opinion, something my city excels in. There are several of them in different parts of town, often reflecting their neighborhoods’ ethnicity. They serve breakfast and lunch 5 days a week for a small fee, and have many different types of programs for all interests, as well as trips to local attractions and events. Costs $20 a year to be able to participate in any and all, tho I understand the fee can be waived at times. In my more mobile days, I went on several great van and bus trips to local attractions and events.
We aren’t “masking” now, but the staff still does, and one can if one wants to. Sanitation is good. They closed completely during the height of the PD. They also offer health programs like BP checks, and immunizations recently. I try to go often, tho fewer formal programs or events now at the height of the summer.
 
We have a busy senior activity center built-in to my Senior apartment complex.. it's in a building that houses offices, and a gym, library and other activities. It's about 5 minutes away, but I rarely go in there..
if someone is playing the piano and/or entertaining I will stop in at times.
And I have gone to a few of their Holiday dinners over the years.


I see people in there daily, watching TV and talking and playing cards, etc. They always have coffee ready in the morning for those that want to stop in. (I walk pass during my dog walks)

It's a very nice place for anyone who wants daily company, and someone to talk to.
 
After my mother stopped driving I would take her to the Senior Center in a town about 15 miles from here, There was a group of about 50 there....The main attraction at this center was the game of Texas Forty Two played with dominoes there would be about 8 tables playing, a few played cards.....anyway I played forty two with them and had loads of fun....about halftime there would be a meal, everyone bought a dish and the county furnished different meats, different tables would take turns being in charge of the food/kitchen.
 
I went to a local senior center quite a few years ago. Had a cup of coffee, spoke to a couple of pleasant folks and never went back -- or to any other senior place. Fortunately, for us, over our lifetime, we have cultivated a close family, both physically and emotionally and they more than take the place of any strangers that we might encounter at this late stage in life.

I must admit that it's getting a little tough getting up from the floor after playing with the building blocks, but those little great grands make it worth the struggle.
 
Wow Paco! That place is huge compared to the one I attended which was just in one large gymnasium type room. They also offer you many activities to choose from, so it seems like a nice place to go. If you do start going, please let us know how you like it.

In 2019 about four months after my husband died, I started attending a local senior center. At first I took public transportation, then signed up for senior center bus transport. I enjoyed attending twice a week, on exercise days, after which we'd line dance and walk and I enjoyed our outings. Once a month we went to a different Walmart. We had time to check out other stores in the area and have breakfast and/or lunch. We also went to Camp Hope. Stopped going there because the entertainment was terrible and they played bingo after we ate. I found I was bored silly with bingo and I'm not a card player either. We even went on an outing to another county for a dinner theater (but during lunch hours). The food was really good and the show was fabulous (Dr. K's Motown Review). There were also the occasional parties. One was for Valentines day… an off site, evening, dress up event where we danced the night away.

Sometimes I brought my coloring books since there was a lot of down time. The lunches were more like dinners and were usually quite good ($1.25 per meal) and breakfast was free. The plate on the right represents the kind of meals we got, most of which started with soup and included meat (or fish), a starch, vegetable, dessert and juice. Someone from another agency visited that day and brought pizza for everyone too. I usually wound up taking half the food home, even on regular days.

20190524_115452.jpg



I liked interacting with a few of the members, wound up reconnecting with a former neighbor and made some new friends. Everything was fine until they changed the transport provider, which they did upon reopening after the COVID closure. Pickups became irregular and finally the day they didn’t pick us up, nor did they call us to say they wouldn’t, I said that’s it…not going back. I didn’t feel safe with the “new” drivers anyway.
 
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Paco Dennis said:
Recently I have been feeling the urge to be around others who are seniors. To talk and do some activities that we enjoy. I found the "Columbia Senior Activity Center". It is about 36 miles from here round trip, which is about $12 gas. I visited there this last week and it was really nice.
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Wow! That place looks great! They had me at the pool table, bridge games, and lunch.
 
Capt Lightning said:
I expect that there might be some centres for seniors here, but I'm not that interested. I don't really want to talk to other seniors about 'the good old days' or share medical problems.
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Maybe you'd be surprised, and could go see sometime when you may want company. It might be fun. I do understand that it is not everyone's cup of tea.

I went with my mother to her senior center. No one was talking about old times or medical problems. One of the things they were talking about was my grandmother. It turned out that one of the ladies there had known her well. She moved to Atlanta, and my grandma had lived in Louisville. I enjoyed hearing her stories about my grandma, who was a wonderful woman.

Everyone was really friendly, and not boring at all. I met a guy there who was reading a huge tome, so I asked him what he was reading about. It was history, not my favorite subject. We ended up having a really interesting conversation, until my mother dragged me away.
 
I'm going to join the senior center in the town I'm moving to. My cousin is the VP of the board that runs it, and he loves it. I have no idea what they do there, but they have lunch for $2 twice a week. They also have outings that they attend on their bus. My cousin has already signed us up for The Big E. It is the Eastern States Exposition, which is basically a huge state fair for New England states. They have everything there, and I am so excited to go.

The Senior Center also will let my son (age 28) go with us to the Big E and for lunch, etc. At least until he gets a FT job. I suspect that has something to do with my cousin.

This is a small town (pop. 1,800), so I'm not expecting much other than getting to meet a lot of people. It is my goal to meet nearly everyone (not counting dangerous folks, if there are any) by the end of my first year there.
 
WheatenLover said:
What do you think would happen if you started one? Or asked the town to open a senior center? Do you think anything could come of that?
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Unfortunately and considering my track record of trying to start social-type stuff, I'm pretty sure nothing would happen, lol. And about asking our town, they're so busy arguing over the homeless problem and the drunk, partying college kid problem, I bet their response would be what it's been when other people have tried to get stuff like boys&girls clubs, book clubs, etc. going: "If people need to socialize, they can attend a church or make their own darn friends." I keep hearing more and more that it's a common thing with college- or university-towns.
 
Paco Dennis said:
Recently I have been feeling the urge to be around others who are seniors. To talk and do some activities that we enjoy. I found the "Columbia Senior Activity Center". It is about 36 miles from here round trip, which is about $12 gas. I visited there this last week and it was really nice. This is a short video of the Center...


Here is their web page for more information:

https://www.comoseniorcenter.org/

If you have a Senior Center is your area please share what it is like. :)
Click to expand...
I had the same urge to meet up with some people. Unfortunately, in my area there is still the Covid fear keeping everything non-op. Some are trying to do a Zoom thing and doesn't fly. Duh!
 
dko1951 said:
I had the same urge to meet up with some people. Unfortunately, in my area there is still the Covid fear keeping everything non-op. Some are trying to do a Zoom thing and doesn't fly. Duh!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I discovered I don't care much for Zoom meetups. I guess it's useful for work situations or when there's absolutely no other way to meet, but just seems awkward for socializing: the Zoom meetings I was in for a book club, seemed like people were always either talking over the top of each other or sitting there awkwardly saying nothing.
 

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