Valley seniors loving their new center in Palmer

PALMER — One good measure of what it means for the senior center to be in a new building is to just listen to what Deputy Director Rachel Greenberg heard from visitors to her office recently.

“You don’t have boxes everywhere! You don’t have all those files!” is how Greenberg recalls the conversation.

The center, doing business as Mat-Su Senior Services, has been in its new $12-million facility since Aug. 29 when it served its first meal.

Greenberg had a lot of examples of just how crowded the old facility was. For example, in her old office, only one person could stand up at a time. The senior employment program was in the basement in the same room as the fire alarm system. When the system was inspected, those folks had to clear out. That’s all changed.

“They have their very own office with a window. They’re very excited about that window,” Greenberg said.

They’ve also moved the gift shop upstairs. Previously it was in the basement.

“A lot of people didn’t know we had a gift shop,” Greenberg said.

Patty Arnold works in the new shop and said it’s got prime real estate, right up front.

“This new facility is very user-friendly,” Arnold said.

Volunteer Jackie Cabo said she appreciates that the new shop has windows and is well-lit.

On a brief tour through the building Thursday, not a single person inside had anything bad to say, instead using words like “lovely” and “nice” to describe the new building.

“I’m very impressed. It’s a lot better than the old one. That one was crowded,” said Glenn Smith.

“I love it. I love the new place. This is the second time I’ve been here and they have real good food here,” said Pat Campbell.

Greenberg said that more room also means more efficiency. That’s most apparent in the kitchen. Previously, workers had to run up and down stairs to bring food from storage rooms and freezers up to the kitchen. Drivers had to go into the main dining room to pick up meals for home delivery.

Now, everything is right there, close at hand. A process that used to take two and a half hours can be done in an hour and a half.

“It’s an incredible amount of efficiency,” Greenberg said.

Of course the efficiency is great but benefitting from it took some work.

“The first few days were really tough because there was a whole new system for how to process home-delivered meals,” Greenberg said.

Having the dining room right on the ground floor is also a benefit for the people she serves.

“The seniors can walk right into the building and the dining room is right there instead of having to walk up a really long ramp like it used to be,” Greenberg said.

Space also means more safety.

“The old building when we were serving lunch there would be this big traffic jam in the kitchen during the serving line,” Greenberg said.

From a life safety perspective, crowds mean trouble getting out of a building if it needs to be evacuated. Another safety improvement — there is room in the building to keep more staff on hand to help seniors if they have medical trouble.

“It’s really a substantially safer place,” Greenberg said.

She said she hasn’t heard much in the way of complaints and the ones she has heard have been minor.

“There’s a little bit of like we need more coat racks,” Greenberg said.

Those are the kinds of problems she doesn’t mind hearing about — small problems that are easy to fix.

“Change is hard, even if it’s a good change,” Greenberg said. But, “Most people are really, really liking it.”

The center is planning a grand opening ceremony on Oct. 19 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Invitations should be going out soon. Everyone is invited, she said.

“We want everybody to come and we want to share this phenomenal building because we do want it to be used for various activities in the community,” Greenberg said.

On a personal level, she said she’s glad to be out of the old building. Indeed, she was on pins and needles waiting for the new one to be ready. They’d planned at first for a mid-summer opening but the contractor had until September to get it all wrapped up. Once she’d moved, Greenberg said, it was even better than what she’d expected. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say she hadn’t realized just how much she’d adapted to the adverse conditions of the old place.

“You live with what you have and you don’t realize really how bad it is until it’s not there anymore.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.