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World Photo by Madeline Steege
The North Bend Senior Center at 1470 Airport Lane in North Bend may or may not be open next year according to board members. A lack of funding and a shortage of attendance has hampered the facility. |
Saving the senior center
Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:09 PM PST
NORTH BEND — If Marian Norton were a super hero, she’d be Super Senior, fighting to keep the North Bend Senior Activities Center running as smoothly as she can.
On days when it’s not open, the 66-year-old shops for senior lunches, cleans up the place and does the books. If it’s a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, she can be found cooking the mid-day meal for members who walk in ready for a nibble and a chat. The place is open only 12 hours a week, but this president and treasurer of the center easily puts in 30.
 Marian Norton, Super Senior
“I just enjoy the seniors on a whole,” she said. “I always have. As a senior myself now, I see their needs. It’s something that makes me happy.”
But with a near empty bank account, not enough help to operate the facility and a barely functional heater, Norton can’t keep the center running on her own.
“She’s definitely overworked. She has so many things to do,” said Barry Sorenson.
Sorenson sits on the center’s board of directors and the board has realized other members need to step up and help.
“Unless some of those things get resolved, it’s pretty certain to close,” he said.
While the center at 1470 Airport Lane has plenty of volunteers to prepare and serve lunches, there aren’t enough to keep the business end of the operation running. Most of the work falls on Norton’s shoulders. Sorenson said the board needs new members to bring in new energy and handle management duties.
If there were money to embezzle, it could easily be done when the president, bookkeeper and treasurer are the same person, Sorenson said. Not that he’s suggesting Norton’s cooking the books. She’s not.
“You can’t run a nonprofit that way,” Sorenson said.
Norton said the center has about $500 in the bank, and expects to bring in about $2,500 a month. She said it would require closer to $4,000 to $5,000 a month to operate the center comfortably.
On top of that, the center is so cold, it has lost membership. Fewer seniors visit for lunches and activities. Groups, including the bridge club, have moved since members just can’t handle playing in the cold building.
Estimates put the cost at $25,000 to fix or replace the heater — money the center simply doesn’t have.
“One day we played bridge in there and it was 56 degrees. And that’s pretty chilly to be sitting around card tables,” Sorenson, 66, said.
The club has since moved to the First Christian Church in North Bend.
It had played at the center for about 10 years, he added, and paid about $200 a month to use the facility.
A yoga group still meets at the center, but the lunch crowd has diminished, prompting the center to cut lunch from five to three days a week this summer.
“I’m afraid of it just dwindling down where there’s just not enough left to keep the doors open,” Sorenson said.
Norton had planned to resign until she realized no one would take her place.
“I have all kinds of good helpers as far as serving ... but when it comes to the business portion, there is nobody.”
The center was plagued with money problems even before she took office in January 2007.
To rectify the situation, the center held garage sales and raffles, but eventually problems — such as the faulty heater — thwarted volunteers’ success.
“You can only struggle so long before things just pile up,” she said.
Closing the facility, Norton said, would be a blow to the 100 or so older seniors who use the center. The other issue is Baby Boomers aren’t using senior centers. As older adults pass away, few come to fill their seats.
“I guess they don’t want to acknowledge their age,” Norton said.
She said she’s trying to encourage more of the 50- to 60-year-old set to step forward and join.
She recently added 26 new members to the list.
“I got their $10 and they got their membership cards.”
To overcome all these problems, last week, members, along with Sorenson, Norton, fellow directors, a representative of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and a few city officials met.
“Everybody wants the thing to stay open but nobody wants to be part of the solution,” Sorenson said.
Still, it was a start.
The meeting gave Norton a more positive outlook about the center’s future.
“I believe we can pull it out, but it takes more than one person to run this show,” the Super Senior said. |
