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Card-playing
senior center told to widen its activities
By
MARK SCOLFORO Beaufort
Gazette, July 10, 2003 YORK,
Pa. - Twice a week, 92-year-old Kay Seitz drives a few miles across town
to play bridge at the Yorktown Senior Center. She
values the chance to socialize with people of her generation inside the
clean, air-conditioned space the center rents from Faith United Church of
Christ, and says the game keeps her mind sharp. But
Seitz's routine may soon change. York County officials say card-playing
isn't enough to fulfill a requirement in the center's contract — based
on state regulations — that it provide seniors with regular programs on
consumer education, nutrition, health and wellness, and self-enrichment. They
are threatening to yank a $22,000 grant that represents two-thirds of the
center's yearly budget. "For
five straight months, the only thing they offered on a Friday was
bridge," said Mike Wagner, deputy director of the York County Agency
on Aging. "We believe that it's very important, if they're using
taxpayer dollars, that they ought to be using them in the way that is
proscribed." The
agency recently notified the center it would lose the grant as of Aug. 1.
The center's board is pursuing an administrative appeal, and the center is
scrambling to expand its programs. A
set of new activities is not a popular idea among Seitz and her friends,
some of whom have been playing cards at the center for more than 15 years. "We
have to do that to get the money," Seitz said. "Exercise I don't
need. ... I have a hard enough time getting up when there are no arms on
the chair." Seitz
and her friends said that, if the center is closed, they won't attend the
two other nearby senior centers because they think one is in a bad
neighborhood and the other lacks convenient parking. Officials
at the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, whose regulations establish
minimum standards for the 650 senior centers that receive a state subsidy,
could not name another instance when a county Area Agency on Aging pulled
funding for similar reasons. "They
can recall several times where the places were closed due to relocation,
landlord problems, things like that, but they can't remember any that
terminated the contract" due to violations of the contract, said
department spokeswoman Jessica Sheehan. The
Yorktown Senior Center had already been the object of county-agency
concern because of its low attendance and cards-heavy activity schedule
when it ran afoul of state and county rules twice in June. It
closed for three days without notifying the county. And on two occasions,
Meals on Wheels meals were left in a cooler on a front porch despite a
requirement that meals should be kept warm. Jerry
Nichols, the center's executive director, said the violations were valid
but wants time to fix the problems and to work new programs into the
schedule. The center's schedule for July includes a talk by an expert on
strokes, visits to local restaurants, crafts and an art class. The
Yorktown Senior Center is among the most poorly attended of the 17 senior
centers in York County, with just 10 to 20 people coming in each day.
Officials say wider program offerings will draw in more people. "Every
successful senior center's got a card-playing group, but they've also got
other things going on. That's the heart of it," said Richard Browdie,
who spent seven years as Aging secretary in Pennsylvania and now runs the
Benjamin Rose Institute, a Cleveland-based service organization for
seniors. "People
get drawn to variety. ... They see something that interests them, and
they'll come in for that. That's how a senior center continues to attract
and grow," he said. But
card players at the Yorktown Senior Center doubt such activities will
attract a full house. "I
think they would (expand offerings) if we wanted them," said Gil
Bunnel, a 79-year-old retired ski lodge operator. "We're getting old
and we don't have any interest in making baskets and such." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
