A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Prevailing notion of ‘senior moments’ redefined by friends who meet at senior centers run by NKCAC


By Vicki Prichard
NKyTribune reporter

For visitors to the Elsmere Senior Center, senior moments often look like this: women gathered in a room laughing and talking about dance classes, road trips, competing in Wii games, and forging new friendships.

“I’ve been coming here three years in March,” says Dusty Dunigan, 72, of Erlanger. “My husband passed away and I was bored and was told about this place. I absolutely love it. They welcomed me with open arms. We’re one big family here.”

Three friends enjoy each other and the Elsmere Senior Center. Jean Baran of Fort Mitchell, Dusty Dungan of Erlanger and Marcia Clark of Erlanger.

Among Dunigan’s Elsmere center ‘family’ are Marcia Clark, 77, of Erlanger, and Jean Baran, 89, of Fort Mitchell. One might say their energy, keen wit, and passion for life belies their age, but it may actually be the case that such characteristics are precisely what culminates after at least seven decades of life.

“I’ve been coming here for eight years,” says Clark. “Jean and I have been on trips together, we go out to lunches. I’ve spent the night at her house after her surgery, and take her to the doctor occasionally. We didn’t know each other until we came here.”

Baran came to the center, located at 179 Dell Avenue in Elsmere, after her daughter suggested that she find a senior center that she might enjoy.

“I call this my second home because I’m here so much,” says Barans.

Carol Cope, the center’s director, considers the dynamic group of seniors who walk through her doors among her friends as well.

“They’re a great group and I’m really blessed,” says Cope. “The fact that they are so compassionate and caring, they’re not just my participants at the center, they’re actually my friends.”

Last July, the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission took over the management of the Elsmere Senior Center as well as the senior centers in Ludlow and Williamstown.

Kara Williams, a spokesperson for NKCAC, says that when the area development center was looking for a nonprofit to help manage the day-to-day of those centers, the NKCAC determined that it was a fit with what they were already doing.

All smiles at the Ludlow Senior Center.

“It made a lot of sense for NKCAC because they provide services from birth all the way throughout life,” says Williams. “And there was an existing relationship because NKCAC was already sending some of their program managers to provide this information with seniors.”

Williams says seniors come to the center for a range of reasons.

“People have said a lot of different things have driven them here — why they come the first time — but almost all of them say they have made friendships and relationships that keep them coming back day after day. And they do seem to be truly lifelong friendships, not ‘I’ll have a cup of coffee with you,’ but, ‘You can stay with me when you have your surgery.’”

Since July, NKAC has worked to strengthen its existing programs at the centers. They received generous donations from organizations such as the Durr Foundation and others which helped with technology, computers, and, at the Williamstown center, a flat screen television. It’s work that matters to a community’s overall well-being.

By 2050, the number of Americans over 65 will nearly double to 81.7 million, raising their share of the overall population to 21 percent from 15 percent, according to Census projections.

In Kentucky, a 2015 report on the state of aging, from the state’s Institute for Aging, showed that the largest proportion of persons contributing to Kentucky’s expected population growth is the Baby Boom generation (persons born between 1946 and 1964). In 2010, the population of persons 60 and older was 829,193, comprising 18 percent of the population.

A report on the impact of seniors centers and geriatric healthcare policy at the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware, noted the impact of senior centers on local communities as an increasingly significant issue among a range of stakeholders that include national, state, and local policy makers, and community and nonprofit directors, who are all vital to the leadership, awareness, and support of aging-related and health-promotion issues.

Williams points out that in northern Kentucky, the cities are very important to the senior centers.

“In many cases, the cities own and, or, manage the actual building and property, so this is a value to all of northern Kentucky, their residents and others, to have them [seniors] in these centers.”

Williams says NKCAC works closely with community partners, such as the libraries which provide programs and presentations at the centers.

“A lot of education services come in, whether it’s partnering around food and healthy meals, or diabetic screening. The health department comes in. All of those are really looked at, so this is a community asset.”

While Clark, Dunigan, and Barans each have children in their lives, not all seniors have a connection that keeps them active or tends to needs that might arise.

“Each of the centers, in addition to providing the lunch — if needed — do commodities and basic needs out of the center as well. Many of them did extra food assistance around the holidays so people could have family meals not just here but together so they could take things home as needed. There is that type of support as well,” says Williams.

Bingo at Williamstown Senior Center

In addition to the physical activities, the cerebral offerings through the center are well-received as well.

“I love when the librarian comes from Kenton County once a month,” says Clark. “We’ll do a craft and she’ll have a topic she presents.”

In March, a financial planner will present to the centers.

“She specializes in when you should start taking social security, so she really wants to talk to seniors who are 50 to 65, so that they’re planning properly and understand all the tax implications,” says Williams. “That’s a great opportunity for us because oftentimes people will come in for their parents and they’ll ask us for things like that; that’s a piece of service offering that we want to do.”

Williams says it’s not unusual for the activities and relevant presentations to capture the ongoing interest of the seniors’ adult children.

In Ludlow, she says, two sisters who walked by the Ludlow Senior Center everyday decided they needed to introduce their mother to the center. She visited a few times, and the sisters continue to come as well.

For Cope, who has worked with the center since 2009, working with the seniors is “second nature” to her and feels a “magical connection” with them.

“What I find so fascinating is that they have a fantastic story, even the ones who think they don’t,” says Cope. “They didn’t have the Internet, or all of the things that we depend on in our daily activities. To see the world evolve from a war to what it is now. Can you imagine the wonder? It’s not just their stories, they worked hard to build this country to be what it is.”


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