Fayetteville senior center expands meals, programs

FAYETTEVILLE -- The city's Senior Activity and Wellness Center is expanding its kitchen and ramping up its programs to help a rising number of seniors across the region.

The center on South College Avenue near downtown could have a kitchen 950 square feet bigger within the next year or so to give a boost to the Meals on Wheels and in-house meals programs, director Cayla Wilson said last week. The city has planned on spending up to approximately $250,000 for the project, contingent on City Council approval.

Besides the expansion, the city's allocation to the center this year increased 20 percent to $101,000 to pay for part of the costs of a gym, social events and other services that annually benefit almost 2,000 seniors and people with disabilities in and around Washington County, according to the nonprofit Area Agency on Aging that runs the center.

"It rises almost on a daily basis," Wilson said of the center's attendance.

The center prepared and delivered about 70 Meals on Wheels on weekdays and weekends when Wilson stepped in as director about three years ago, she said. Now it's closer to 170 a day, all provided at no cost or for a small donation. Dozens more seniors and people with disabilities come in each day for breakfast or lunch, to use the exercise room, play billiards or work in the community garden behind the building.

"I feel like that's about the only meal they have sometimes, you know," Mary Carr, 80, said Friday morning as she sat with friends in the center's main room. A married couple and their son played country music as couples danced. "I think it's a very important place for people to come."

The city owns the center and pays the area agency to staff it and Hillcrest Towers on School Avenue one block north of the public library. Private and government grants and donations cover the costs not covered by the city allocation.

"It's just the way that we set it up years ago, and it's worked," said Parks and Recreation Director Connie Edmonston, whose department includes the center facility. The agency can tap government grants the city can't, she added. "We evaluate it, and their programs are very good, so they're meeting the needs of our citizens."

Jerry Mitchell, the agency's executive director, said its 22 senior and wellness centers across nine Northwest Arkansas counties are all seeing an increasing number of people needing help, though the number they can afford to serve goes up and down depending on state aid.

"Our economy's growing and everything's happening, but we have a lot of low-income seniors up here," he said, adding people's migration to the area and the inexorable aging of those already here are both pushing up the number.

About 40 percent of people 60 or more years old deal with some degree of food insecurity, according to a 2014 report called "Senior Hunger in Arkansas" from the state Department of Human Services. Some people live in towns without grocery stores, some have no vehicle to get around, and age and illness can make it difficult to buy or cook food, Mitchell said.

"Arkansas is No. 1 in the nation right now in senior hunger," he said, pointing to a 2014 study by the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger. Of his agency, he added, "We continue to do what we can do to stay on top and not turn anyone away."

To meet the need, Fayetteville's center is adding two ovens, a freezer and a cooler to its kitchen. The kitchen also will extend from the building's north side to enclose an outdoor freezer and provide a staging area for the Meals on Wheels trucks to quickly load.

"We have a lovely facility here. It's beautiful, but it's kind of like they said, 'Oh gee, we need a kitchen,' and they just kind of tacked it on," Wilson said. "We're hoping that there won't be any disruption to the kitchen at all."

Wilson said she expects the kitchen to handle 200 Meals on Wheels a day by the end of the year and foresees at least 300 in the near future.

Two bids came in by Friday's deadline for the project: Benchmark Construction valued it at $413,000, while Ellingson Contracting in Siloam Springs said it could do the work for $287,300. The council will decide on the contractor. Wilson said the Walton Family Foundation gave a $100,000 grant for the work to supplement the $250,000 available from Fayetteville's capital improvements program.

To stretch its food money further, the center's taking part in the national senior hunger foundation's What a Waste program, using detailed data to figure out what seniors are eating or not eating to adjust its menus and waste less. It's also working with the city to compost the waste for the garden. Eventually the squash, kale and other vegetables and herbs growing out back will be used in the meals, Wilson said.

The city allocation goes to the wellness and exercise programs, and the boosted 2016 budget will provide more of everything and help cover maintenance, Wilson said.

Besides meals, the center also works to meet the less dire, but still important, needs for companionship, exercise, transportation to appointments and activities. Members sometimes take trips to casinos, tournaments or museums, and they recently raised the money to buy a third pool table, Wilson said.

Betty Paschal, 78, said she usually comes Tuesdays and Thursdays for exercise on the center's exercise machines.

"I need that," she said with a laugh after dancing for a bit Friday morning, adding she hasn't danced in so long it takes her breath away.

Paschal first started coming years ago for "something to do," as she put it. She stopped coming for a while during a relationship, but the man recently passed away, so she's coming back again for everything it has to offer.

"You know, we get old, and nobody comes around," she said. "A lot of people just come to spend the day."

NW News on 04/25/2016