Does your city/town/area have a Senior Center?

VintageBetter

VintageBetter

Senior Member
If so, what does it offer and what do you think of it?

My local one offers a few classes and free lunches, but they have no email newsletter and don't update their website in a timely manner, so I guess the only way to get info is to go there in person? Rather an old-fashioned, pre-pandemic, gas-burning way to handle communication.
 

Yup, there are senior centers all over here (PA). From 10 AM-12, it's just talking to one another. Then there's a free meal, or at most a few dollars. Then bingo for an hour. It's a U.S. government thing, so there's "regulations". At the meals everybody gets milk. Since I was 2, I despise milk, and do not drink it. I told the lady, to keep the milk, I didn't want to waste it. Well, if they had one milk left over, that would have to be reported, and they're count for dinners given out would not match their milk numbers, and they could lose their funding. I HAD to take the milk.
I stopped going because I really didn't need the meal, and being a diabetic on insulin, I have to know what's in the stuff I'm eating, plus bingo is just way too mind numbing for me.
Being single in a room full of widows is uncomfortable at times, since I'm not the Romeo type.
 
Yes we have a good senior centre with free coffee. classes for different hobbies and all that good stuff butI I never could bring myself to get involved.
They do have short day trips in summer which is good for those able to attend.
I went a few time but always felt bored with the activities and conversations and napping in big cumfy chairs.
My brain at 91 is still not ready to cope with that type of environment.
 
the one here is incorporated into an "all citizens" comminity center and i think it is underused....which may be part of the
reason voters turned down tax raise to buuild a second one in march...
 
Several. One is a big regional center with a lot of offerings. The rest are smaller senior centers that are mainly gathering places. Usually the city centers are part of a larger recreational complex, with a few rooms set aside for seniors to share a beverage and talk. The big regional center offers $5 lunch meals, some transportation, assorted classes and, of course, a place to gather, have a beverage and talk.
 
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Our local Center was pretty dismal. Showing up there last year at age 67 I was mistaken for a volunteer. It catered to the 75 and up crowd, offering little to anyone younger.

Currently shut down. It was housed in an old high school building, but the school district has sold off that entire campus to real estate developers. Coming soon: another walled McMansion Farms Estates - the California Exodus continues. Right now there are plans to reopen in an exterior-facing storefront of a dying shopping mall. Meanwhile the property tax millage levied to support the Senior Center went up again.
 
hollydolly said:
I know what you mean.:ROFLMAO: Every time I get to an age where I'm finally old enough to join something, I look and see that the people are about 20 years older than I am..:D
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Kind of like going to a class re-union. You can get hurt tripping on all the walkers and wheelchairs.
 
We have one, it used to be on the town square and was very easy to get to, but they moved outside of town about a mile into a new building. It was very cliche, kind of like jr. high and I can't get to it or use it now so I don't even give it a thought.
 
None here either. There is a facility called Passages which is a part of the (I guess nation-wide) Area Agency on Aging. They offer limited help for stuff like rides to medical appointments, information about places to live, caregivers to hire, etc., which is great but there is nothing recreational. There are towns near here which have true senior centers but not us. I've heard it's because we're a university town; don't know if that's the real reason or not; but anyway, no senior center here in the 50 years that I've lived here.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Yup, there are senior centers all over here (PA). From 10 AM-12, it's just talking to one another. Then there's a free meal, or at most a few dollars. Then bingo for an hour. It's a U.S. government thing, so there's "regulations". At the meals everybody gets milk. Since I was 2, I despise milk, and do not drink it. I told the lady, to keep the milk, I didn't want to waste it. Well, if they had one milk left over, that would have to be reported, and they're count for dinners given out would not match their milk numbers, and they could lose their funding. I HAD to take the milk.
I stopped going because I really didn't need the meal, and being a diabetic on insulin, I have to know what's in the stuff I'm eating, plus bingo is just way too mind numbing for me.
Being single in a room full of widows is uncomfortable at times, since I'm not the Romeo type.
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During the shutdown they had free frozen lunches instead of their sit-down lunches at one of the local Senior centers, so I went there and got some free food.

I was grateful, but have you ever had a Banquet TV dinner? They still sell them sometimes in stores. Not the best frozen meals around, to put it mildly. The frozen meals from the Senior Center are worse than Banquet TV dinners, but I did not complain. Any free food helps when you're struggling financially.

I also had to take the milk. I think I put it out for the neighbors to take, or just poured it down the drain. I avoid milk because of lactose intolerance.

I've always wondered why they don't have bread to hand out to Seniors? Seems like a staple, yes? Need bread for sandwiches. Maybe because it's perishable? They could freeze bread for weeks.

I can't complain. Not much is free anymore, so at least they have that.
 
Mizmo said:
Yes we have a good senior centre with free coffee. classes for different hobbies and all that good stuff butI I never could bring myself to get involved.
They do have short day trips in summer which is good for those able to attend.
I went a few time but always felt bored with the activities and conversations and napping in big cumfy chairs.
My brain at 91 is still not ready to cope with that type of environment.
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It's funny - our community college district offers a "class" for Seniors and it's basically just times when people come to class to discuss current events. They also have another class for talking about The Old Times.

The reasoning for these groups is simply because so many studies have shown that isolation is bad for Seniors, and others, and so the discussion groups are ways to get people out of the house, away from the TV, and out talking. They are handled by a facilitator, of course. Maybe the facilitator is to prevent people from getting hopping mad at one another if, God forbid, the Topic of the Day is an Election?

I think it's a great idea, but I have not gone. IDK if I will. I think if I'm going to commit my time to something I'd rather learn or volunteering.
 
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TennVet said:
Our town has one, but the only folks that go there are old people.
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My mother was in her mid-70s, bored, and I suggested maybe she look into going to the Senior Center. That was her reaction: "I don't want to go hang out with those old people!"

She should have though. It would have helped her. But she had been through a truckload of loss and trauma in the last years of her life and I don't think she could get herself unstuck. I would have suggested she go to therapy, but NO - that idea would not have floated well with her at all. She was not anti-therapy, but she did not see herself as needing it.
 

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