Friday, August 23, 2024
On Wednesday, Aug. 21, the Gatesville Senior Center recognized their congregation and local seniors with a potluck party in honor of National Senior Citizen’s Day.
The Senior Center is known throughout the community for being the spot for elderly folks to enjoy a meal, partake in activities, or to attend a class.
“We offer daily meals and companionship,” Senior Center Director Pam Rudolph said. “We also offer bingo on Tuesdays and Thursdays, movies on Wednesdays, and quilting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.”
Throughout the month of August, the Senior Center has hosted Treadway Hearing to provide free hearing screens and Coryell Health to offer health screenings. The facility also offered a variety of classes through Texas AgriLife Extension.
The classes are educational seminars, which host different hospice companies, nursing homes, and insurance companies as well as evidence bases classes to enrich the seniors’ lives.
“I am planning our first field trip, hopefully, in October,” Rudolph said.
“One goal I have is to bridge the gap between the meals on wheels clients and feeling like they are isolated,” she said. “We recently launched a software system that will help with that where I can send out mass broadcasts letting all clients know about closures and send out reminders or seasonal greetings.”
With Nutrition Supervisor Camilla Edge serving 250 to 300 meals each week for her clients, the Meals on Wheels program is one of the center’s main priorities.
“Meals on Wheels is very important, because the purpose is to deliver meals to seniors who are shut in, cannot drive, or leave their home as well as giving our clients a sense of purpose,” she said. “Camilla and I have worked very hard here; we were recently acknowledged for serving over 1,700 meals in one month- that’s something to be proud of.”
“The congregation is important to me because I can sit with them and discuss their lives, I can visually check on them and make sure they are ok,” she said. “The center as a whole gives me the opportunity to utilize my previous work experience to ensure these folks are getting the best quality of care and life enrichment services.”
“Every day at the senior center is Senior Citizen’s Day to me,” Edge said.
