Hard times hit senior center

WASILLA — The Wasilla Senior Center announced the popular conglomerate meals are to be scaled back and senior day-care program will be cut due to financial problems.

“This is not unexpected,” said Sondra Kaplan, executive director of the center. “We’ve been running a deficit for the past year or so. […] We will not be shutting down, but we will be limiting services.”

Last Wednesday, the senior center announced it would end the popular conglomerate meals, a buffet line open Monday through Friday during the lunch hour. Many seniors see the meals as a social function.

“The conglomerate meals are open to the entire senior community,” said Kaplan. “They are paid for on a donation basis. We serve 55 to 75 individuals a day.”

However, by an overwhelmingly positive response from the community, Kaplan was happy to announce on Friday that the meals will continue, albeit on a more limited basis.

“The senior meals are still open,” said Kaplan, “but we are diminshing it. The menu is going to be more limited, but we will still offer meals five days a week.”

However, the fate of the day care is less hopeful.

The center offered a place where seniors whose cognitive skills are starting to fail could come while their caretakers were at work. The seniors would be in a comfortable environment supervised by trained medical staff.

“The adult day care is shut down for the time being,” said Kaplan. “It will be shut down until we can get it self-sustaining, maybe a year or two down the road.”

“For now, we are having to refer them out to the Palmer Senior Center,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan, along with the new product development director, Shelia Walker, were hired by the board of directors less than two months ago to assess the programs. They both bring strong business backgrounds to the board that knew it needed some help.

“We only see this as a short-term hiatus,” said Kaplan. “This should give us time to do a through assessment, adjust the budget, pay some backlog, and get it back on its feet in a way to sustain itself.”

“Basically, this is a service that started out of a local church. Now it has simply outgrown itself,” said Walker. “With the rising cost of fuel and food, it is just upside-down on itself now. We are working very hard to get it right.”

Shutting the whole center down, she said, “is not going to happen now that we’re getting some response from the grassroots side. There has been a great response from the people in the community. The seniors themselves are donating their own money, and we are forming a larger volunteer organization. This all came from the community.”

Trying to find a fix, the center is assessing all options for funding, knowing they cannot only rely on donations from the community.

“We are speaking to the state now,” said Kaplan. “They are sending people in from Juneau and have suggested they will be able to keep us open.”

“As a council member, I can say we would look to see if there’s anything we can do to support the center as it looks for other funding,” said Wasilla City Councilwoman Diane Woodruff.

While Kaplan and Walker still do not know the final fate of the two programs, the members of the senior center will have a chance to give their input at the membership meeting at noon today.

Whatever happens to the conglomerate meals and the senior day care, the food the senior center provides for the Meals on Wheels program and the assisted living facility will continue for the foreseeable future.