Enhancing Senior Lives: The Impact of Senior Community Centers

In episode 47 of Advice From Your Advocates Podcast, Host Attorney Bob Mannor interviews Holly Burgess from the Swartz Creek Senior Center and Greg Matheson from the Flushing Senior Center. They discuss the importance of senior centers in the community and how they connect seniors to services and resources. They also talk about the role of senior centers in enhancing the lives of retired individuals and seniors with memory loss. The conversation highlights upcoming events and programs at the senior centers and emphasizes the need for support and awareness of the Genesee County Senior Millage.

Episode Takeaways

* Senior centers play a critical role in the community by connecting seniors to services and resources.

* Senior centers enhance the lives of retired individuals and seniors by providing opportunities for physical and mental well-being.

* Senior centers offer a variety of programs and events, including exercise classes, educational seminars, and social activities.

* Senior centers can support individuals with memory loss through support groups, educational programs, and collaboration with community partners.

* The Genesee County Senior Millage provides funding for senior centers and a wide range of services and support mechanisms for seniors.

Watch the full episode here or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Find more episodes on our website: www.mannorlawgroup.com/podcast
Swartz Creek Senior Center: https://myscasc.org/

Flushing Senior Center: https://www.flushingseniorcenter.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 The Importance of Senior Centers
• 14:15 Support and Resources for Senior Care
• 18:44 Promoting Engagement in Senior Centers
• 27:20 Spreading Awareness of Senior Center Programs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Advice from your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome to Advice from your Advocates. I'm Bob Manor, I'm a certified elder law attorney in Michigan and today we have a really interesting podcast. Today we've got Holly Burgess from the Swartz Creek Senior Center and Greg Matheson from the Flushing Senior Center here in Genesee County. So welcome, thank you. Thank you. Can you guys both just kind of start by introducing yourselves, what your role is, and tell us a little bit about your senior centers? Holly, you want to go first.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Yes, I will. So my name is Holly and I am the the program coordinator at the Sports Creek Senior Center. So my main tasks are to plan our daily monthly special event programming. I do a lot of our community engagement. I go to chamber meetings and meet different partners in our community. I do a lot of our marketing and newsletter. I do a little bit of everything every day.

Speaker 3: 1:08

I'm Greg Matheson. I'm the director at the Flushing Area Senior Center, sort of hitting off what Holly mentioned. In terms of my role, I do a little bit of everything. I oversee programming, I oversee finance, budgets, payroll, with a total staff of four. You know we do everything we set up for programming. We answer phone calls, we serve lunches, and so you know we're here to serve all our seniors in a variety of ways.

Speaker 2: 1:37

So most of our listeners know that I work a lot with the aging population, that I work a lot with the aging population and I know very well how critically important senior centers are. But I'd like both of you to kind of just address the importance of the senior center in the community and how important it is for some seniors in their interaction with others, their interaction with the community. So why don't we start with you, Greg?

Speaker 3: 2:09

Well, in terms of the role that the Senior Center here in Flushing plays, you know, I think it's huge. Right now we have a career-inactive membership of 1,835 members. Those are members who have come into our doors over the past calendar year. Those are members who have come into our doors over the past calendar year. You know. With that said, we also realize that is a fraction of all the and events, but also collaborate with a number of different community partners that can provide assistance to our members.

Speaker 2: 3:00

But in the other way we can help promote the wonderful services that they offer as well. That's great.

Speaker 1: 3:03

How about you, Holly? Anything to add to that? No, I think.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Greg said that perfectly. So Greg said something about working with community partners and I think that's really important. Do you want to address that? How Swartz Creek Senior Center is able to connect people to some of the services they need and connect them to their community?

Speaker 1: 3:25

Yeah, so at the Swartz Creek Senior Center we work with a variety of different community partners. Some of them provide services that they're expertise on, some of them provide educational seminars and some just come and volunteer and really spread the word of our center, which is great, and I enjoy working with them and spreading what they can offer. For example, you heard the legal services of Eastern Michigan and, yes, they are great. They provide free legal services for those for 60 or older. We also work with AARP, who provides Medicaid, medicare and tax services, which is a great community partner for us. They do different seminars. We have, like the medical teams, supports a lot of our special events. They help volunteer and they also provide us a brief support group. So I enjoy having a variety of different people around, because you hear a lot of the times they say I didn't know that was available in our community or I didn't know that they had this service, and then they go and make those connections with our seniors.

Speaker 2: 4:32

So I'm going to mention to you about Eastern Michigan Legal Services. We're really pretty lucky to have them in our community, so we're often going to be referring people out for legal services if they're not necessarily appropriate for our services, and so we'll get calls from different areas in the state and it's not always so obvious what the legal services can provide. And Eastern Michigan Legal Services does a great job of explaining exactly what they can do for you, being available for it and it's, you know, covered under the Genesee County Mellon. So we you know that that can be handled. So it's nice to have that resource where we know we can send them there and they'll get quality legal services, because in other areas of the state it's not quite so obvious. There's supposed to be legal services available for everybody in the state of Michigan but it's not quite so obvious where to send them. In other parts folks are that are coming into the Senior Center to access your services. What age range are we looking at typically?

Speaker 3: 5:54

You know, technically, for the large majority of events and programmings we have, it's available to anyone who's 50 and older who resides in Genesee County. There are a couple services or programs. It was mentioned legal services. Just based on the verbiage within the millage, you need to be six years older. For lunch, if you are 60 and older, we only ask for a $3 donation. If you're between 50 and 59,'s a mandatory six dollar cost. In terms of the demographics and having looked at those numbers recently, uh, I would say the bulk of our membership is in the range of 65 to 85, but of course, we have members as young as 50 and we have members, uh, who are as old as 100. We celebrated the 100th birthday of one of our members a few weeks ago, a former bus driver of ours. That would fall within that range 65 to 85.

Speaker 2: 6:55

That's great. What would you say and this is for either of you kind of walk me through your typical day at the Senior Center. So if I'm a senior in your community and I want to start looking at getting more active in my community, get active in the Senior Center, is it different every day? Do we have certain things that happen every day? What does the typical day look like?

Speaker 1: 7:21

Yeah, so at the Swartz Creek Senior Center center every day is a little different, but I would say the majority of days. We start our morning with yoga and then we have different exercise classes, generally in the morning, and then, as we get further in the afternoon, we usually have an educational seminar and lunch. Every day we do do different card groups. We have clubs like knitting and crochet, card making, jewelry making for those who are crafty, and then in the evenings we're open until 8 pm Monday through Thursday. So in the evenings we usually have card groups or on special occasions we'll have dinners.

Speaker 2: 8:04

And how would someone that wants to get involved and start maybe playing cards or coming to the crochet group or something like that? What's the best way to initiate that interaction, greg?

Speaker 3: 8:23

First off, either stop by For us. Our normal work hours are 8 to 4. They can stop by or they can call us. They can reach out to us through Messenger, email us just to get some of the initial information. For us it's a matter of filling out a participation form, a liability form. There are no mandatory dues. So joining us, there's typically always someone available who can provide a tour of the center, answer any of the questions they have and then get them underway. I also want to remind all of the listeners too if you are 50 and older and reside in Genesee County, you have to come to Flushing to sign up for a membership. You have access to all 16 senior centers across the county. You have access to all 16 senior centers across the county and that's really important because there are a lot of great and unique programs, including Swartz Creek, that may be offered outside of what you would call your home center. So you know that's important to pass on.

Speaker 2: 9:22

That's really important.

Speaker 1: 9:43

The variety of options is one of the things that I think can really be helpful, for I think that one of the main things that the majority of our members come for is one increasing their physical activity, which can be really hard to do on your own, even as a young person, and so it's really nice to have a group of people that you come with once a week, twice a week, and increase your physical well-being. And then also having these educational seminars in different groups where you're learning something new every day, really increases your mental health as well.

Speaker 2: 10:20

So a lot of the people that listen to this podcast work in the long-term care industry a bit and you know we have some social workers and things like that that might be listening. How does the Senior Center work with or help get information out about long-term care and when you know when we need to start looking at, maybe bringing help into the home or looking at you know senior communities and things like that. How does this? How can the senior centers participate in that conversation?

Speaker 3: 10:54

You know, for the senior center it requires us to be willing to be open and collaborative with a number of these different agents. You know, whether we happen to reach out to them we hear about a program or a service or they reach out to us we need to be willing to allow them into the center and promote, promote, promote, whatever the presentation may be, to encourage participation with it, helps do research on different independent living agencies around the county. He did a nice presentation on that. So if and when our members are ready to move out of their home and look into a residence such as that, he can do the legwork on it and set up the appointments, things of that nature. But I've been here four years and, as I've come to find out, Genesee County has just a wide range of services and support mechanisms. It really requires all the centers to be willing to collaborate with those agencies to help spread the word and get the word out, knowing our membership is going to benefit from it.

Speaker 2: 12:12

My law practice. We have, for the last few years, started saying that we're a dementia-focused practice, and the reason why we've said that is because, well, we've been helping people with dealing with long-term care and finding resources and finding sources of payment for long-term care. And finding resources and finding sources of payment for long-term care we noticed several years ago that the majority of those folks that need that have some form of memory loss or dementia. And so I was talking to another guest on the podcast a few weeks ago and they have an organization where they provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, for neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, and he mentioned that sometimes when people get that diagnosis, they tend to close in, in other words, they go home, they stop interacting with the community, they don't even seek out those services like the occupational therapy and things to help them adapt to this diagnosis, and I've noticed a memory loss.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Are they still included in the senior center? Are there going to be activities for them? Obviously, there's a point at which maybe they would need more supervision than that, but the span of dementia can go everywhere, from hey just kind of forgetting where I put my keys every day to not being able to interact at all keys every day to not being able to interact at all, and so on those early stages, how do the senior centers interact with that and what can families kind of look to for the senior centers to be able to actually maybe extend that quality of life of that period of time where they are still very interactive with others and maybe can even help with the memory because of that interaction with others?

Speaker 3: 14:12

I'll start, if that's okay, Ali. You know there's a few programs in place for us. We have a Dimeja support group meets monthly with the facilitator, Dawn Schroeder does a wonderful job, and it's not just in terms of seeking the support of Dawn and those who attend the meetings, but also having Dawn provide them with some paths to get some of the additional support they need. Baaa also offers a number of workshops related to dementia and helping the caregiver have the proper tools to help provide the support of a loved friend or loved one. The AAA also can offer a variety of resources for those who are experiencing dementia. There's been many times, I'm sure in Swartz Creek too, where we have some very independent engaged members who we find out have been recently diagnosed. I can think of one who was a pretty regular participant here is no longer able to drive, so we are able to provide him with the transportation within the school district boundaries for various appointments. Now that he's not able to do that, Wow that's great For those listeners that don't know.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Vaaa is, that's the local area agency on aging. So it's in here. It's called Valley Area Agency on Aging and everywhere in the United States should be have an area agency on aging that covers their territory. So that's not just for Michigan or Jesse County, that's everywhere in the United States. Holly, did you have any comments on working with seniors with some memory loss?

Speaker 1: 15:48

Yeah, like Greg said, we are very excited to now have an Alzheimer's support restarting monthly in July. We're excited to have that now. We also work with the AAA with different series and seminars and resources for caregivers and those who are recently diagnosed with dementia. We just recently had a savvy caregiver class which is like a six-week series for caregivers and those who are recently diagnosed with dementia. We just recently had a savvy caregiver class which is like a six-week series for caregivers and I think a lot of that covers dementia care. We really try to make our programs accessible to everybody, even in the later stages that you need a caregiver to come with you to participate and you can just do, maybe chair exercises once a week. Um, that's something we really encourage because physical health, as much as you can do, increases your mental health and your your overall well-being of life.

Speaker 2: 16:40

I I think I have seen here so you both mentioned the caregiver support group for dementia. We had someone from the Alzheimer's Association on the podcast a while ago and they have so many services to the Alzheimer's Association. But one of the ones that I think a lot of people appreciate are these caregiver support groups. One, and it provides a real nice service because everybody you know if you're a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer's, there's just a lot of stress that comes with that and having the ability to cooperate with others and be able to talk and get resources from others in similar circumstances. I think that's just a really nice thing that the Senior Centers and the Alzheimer's Association does. I actually this is a really good question that I had sent you guys about how do you see senior centers evolving in the future? Here, you know, everything seems to have changed since COVID, right? And yet the senior centers are still thriving, and so do you see any changes in the coming years?

Speaker 2: 17:52

Do you see any sort of evolving expectations for senior centers in the future?

Speaker 3: 17:59

You know, when I saw that question, the first thing that came to mind for us is assisting our seniors in staying up with how to be tech savvy, meeting those technology needs that really came to light especially during the pandemic.

Speaker 3: 18:18

For a great example, members calling when they were starting up the booster shots, the COVID booster shots If you wanted to do that, 99% of the time you had to go online, whether that was through a local drugstore or through the health department, and so we provided quite a bit of one-on-one assistance for that.

Speaker 3: 18:44

But also find ways in which the technology is not always required. For example, at the booster shots, we decide to collaborate with a local pharmacy and then just offer face-to-face appointments and making the sign-up process that much easier. Having said that, realizing that utilizing a smartphone, tablet or computer in terms of accessing resources or whatever it is you need work, it will be required. We're fortunate enough to have two volunteers who offer tech tutoring anywhere from two to four times a month for half of our appointments free of charge. One of the gentlemen, ryan cacadary, who is affiliated with the genesee district library, also offers work technology workshops, and that could be a range of different topics. He offers those free of charge to us and our membership here at the center, and we have just found that to be very, very beneficial.

Speaker 2: 19:44

You know that's really great and I think that that tells you something about the folks that come to senior centers. And you know there's this you know some people imagine that seniors are once you retire and they slow down and they start engaging in less things. But at least the ones that come to the senior centers are definitely active and involved, are taking classes, and I think that's really important for health, for your mind, for your body and everything, and so it's always fun visiting the senior centers and just seeing how active everybody is and how engaged everybody is in the different options that are there. It's one of the things that I really promote, and sometimes I'm working with a family that has a senior that is less engaged. Maybe they're not getting out very often and they're encouraging their parent. Do you have any advice for families you know that have parents that they would like to get more engaged into the senior centers? Advice for the kids in helping to recommend to their parents to get involved, to recommend to their parents to get involved.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Yeah, I think what I always recommend is when they come in and ask me for information that children do and I say, well, what did they enjoy doing in the past? Did they like playing cards? Are they knitters or crocheters? Do they like pizza parties? What are they going to be interested in? And then, looking at our newsletter, what we offer, because it's easier to suggest. You know you used to play cards. Why don't you go out once a week and play euchre? Or oh, you just really want to be around people, so let's plan to go to like a holiday luncheon. You know you got to ease them in. You can't just offer all of these things at one time. It can be very overwhelming for somebody who is just starting to be more engaged, especially after COVID, when we've been isolated for so long. I definitely recommend see what they used to do. I recommend that they start that one thing up again and then we'll just introduce them to everything else.

Speaker 2: 21:55

That's great. I want to give both of you an opportunity to talk about any upcoming events that you have scheduled at either the Swartz Creek Senior Center or the Flushing Senior Center.

Speaker 3: 22:05

Well, we offer on average monthly. We offer about 50 different events and programs each month Over 90% of those. On average, too, there's no additional out-of-pocket costs. A large majority of our operational costs are funded through the senior village. In terms of upcoming events that are taking place this summer, we have an aqua aerobics class. We're teaming up with Flushing Valley and meeting every Wednesday morning for aqua aerobics. That's funded through a grant, and our instructor is doing an outstanding job there, and so we have up to 30 members who are jumping in that pool every Wednesday at 10 am.

Speaker 3: 22:53

A program that we just got underway with is something we call a story of our lives, and that's we're teaming up with Flushing High School staff and students and actually doing a video interview of a particular time in their life. It's something we're recording and then sharing out with the public and also offering those stories on a link on our website. We've had a lot of positive feedback on that. A program that just got underway is Senior Astronomers, and we're teaming up, I think, with five different senior centers, including Swartz Creek. One of our members, Bob Crenn, is offering a monthly meeting and then also setting up time for evening viewings for our senior astronomers and then, finally, a program that's just gotten underway too is field sketch, journaling and going out into different parks and paths. We have a member who happens to be a botanist and is this is her forte, and going out and frame this for our fellow artists who want to try something different.

Speaker 2: 24:02

So that's fantastic. I love how you're incorporating the expertise of your members and designing some of your programs around that expertise. I think that's fantastic. How about you, holly? What upcoming programs or events do you have coming?

Speaker 1: 24:18

Yeah, so with just seminars and monthly events, like Greg said, a lot of our programming is free or very little out-of-pocket costs. We recently just partnered up with the Alzheimer's Association to do educational programs, which I'm very excited about I think our first one's this month and we scheduled them out until September or October every month.

Speaker 2: 24:39

That's great. One of the things I wanted to circle back to, craig had mentioned the Genesee County Senior Millage and that the senior centers all of them get some of their funding through that. I did want to point out that there is a renewal of that Genesee County Senior Mill, so it's not an increase but it's a renewal, and the vote is August 5th and I just decided to print off the long list of things that that supports. So not only does it support the senior centers, there's a program for adult daycare for folks that might need that, case management through Valley Area Agents and Aging. It helps address some of the elder abuse and exploitation and preventing elder abuse and exploitation through the Genesee County Sheriff's Office. It's helped through the Family Service Agency for guardianships and conservatorships. Home-delivered meals through the Genesee County Community Action Resource Department. In-home personal care and homemaking services through the Family Services Agency and alternative elderly care, in-home respite care through Michigan Community Services. This goes on and on.

Speaker 2: 25:46

We talked about the legal services through Legal Services of Eastern Michigan, interpreting services for the deaf and hard of hearing, long care and snow maintenance through St Luke's New Life Center. Medical transportation services with the liaison from the Family Service Agency. Ramp construction for the Disability Network. It goes on and on and on. It's really a fantastic program and something that I highly support. It's been a blessing to the senior residents of Genesee County. I know that I really feel like it's something that I know other counties do this, but if if you're in a county that doesn't have such a senior millage, you may want to look into Genesee County, because we've had it for for at least a few election cycles now and it's a really fantastic program that supports so many things that are beneficial to our community.

Speaker 3: 26:40

I have just one clarification it's Tuesday August 6th.

Speaker 2: 26:44

Did I have it written right?

Speaker 3: 26:46

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2: 26:48

I said the 5th, but it's actually the 6th and it was probably. I couldn't even read my own handwriting, so thank you for that clarification. And it was probably. I couldn't even read my own handwriting, so thank you for that clarification. So I would just want to encourage everybody to check out their local senior centers, get involved, see if you can do anything to help promote or advance the work of the senior centers and their cooperative partners and things like that. Any other thoughts that either of you have for our audience before we finish up for today?

Speaker 3: 27:20

I guess my only thoughts are please help get the word out. You know, along Swords Creek and the 14 other senior centers, it's our goal to get as much participation as possible. We have a very high demographic in this county of eligible seniors. I'm still assuming there's a number of seniors who do not realize either that these programs exist, these centers exist and the amount of programming that is available in all 16 senior centers and how much their lives will benefit improve just coming out engaging others being a part of all the wonderful programming and services each of them have to offer.

Speaker 2: 28:05

Well said. So thank you, Holly and Greg, for coming on to the podcast, but also for all that you do for our community. If you've enjoyed this podcast and you want to know when we have another one come out, you can do for our community. If you've enjoyed this podcast and you want to know when we have another one come out, you can subscribe to our podcast at anywhere that you listen to podcasts. Just look for advice from your advocates and we'll talk to you next time.