Perryville’s Senior Center is celebrating an important milestone on Monday, October 5.
The senior center, which opened in 1976, will be celebrating 50 years of providing hot meals to senior citizens in Perry County.
The center operates under Aging Matters, a non-profit organization that serves 18 countries in southern Missouri, with a mission to “develop a coordinated delivery system of services to assist and enable older Missourians to remain in their own homes as long as possible and enhance the quality of life for all older Missourians.”
According to the center’s administrator, Jennifer Freeman, the center serves approximately 150 meals a day, both in person and delivered through meals on wheels. Freeman said the meals are only part of what goes on during a typical week.
“We have various activities,” Freeman said. “On Wednesdays, we have the chair exercises, which is becoming more and more popular. We have eight to ten bingos a month, which are very popular, and we have several speakers who come in and talk to seniors and answer questions about things like Medicaid, home health services and hospice services.”
The hot lunches are the main event however.
“We serve a balanced hot lunch Monday through Friday,” Freeman said. It is from a menu cycle given to me by the registered nutritionist at Aging Matters, you have your entree, two vegetables, a fruit, sometimes we have a homemade dessert. For anyone 60 or over, it is a donation of $5. Anyone can eat here, but if you’re under 60, it’s a $10 charge.”
A special lunch will be served on Monday Oct. 5 to honor the 50th anniversary of the senior center following a 10 a.m bingo game, with many distinguished guests expected to come and take part in the festivities.
“I invited many of our city and county dignitaries hoping they’ll join us like the mayor and the board of alderman and the city administrator and the county commissioners and so on and so forth,” Freeman said. “We are going to have a couple of speakers. One is going to speak about what the senior center meant to her parents as a testimonial. The president of Aging Matters is coming to give a speech, which I’m very excited about. She is a Perry Countian, which is nice. We’re just going to gather to celebrate and talk about good things about the Senior Center.”
Freeman said the center faces challenges due to the fact that people are working longer and retiring later than in previous generations, so she hopes people will continue to donate to the center so it can continue to serve locals, and be a place for seniors to congregate and socialize, as isolation can be a big problem for senior citizens, especially in rural areas.
“It means a lot to people to have somewhere that they can go to every day and have a good lunch and meet with other people their own age,” she said. “We have people that are born and raised here, but their families have moved away and they come in to see old friends, maybe people they went to school with, and reconnect, talk about things that they have in common. We have a puzzle table. A lot of people like to talk while putting a puzzle together. And they just really enjoy it. They really enjoy the friendships.”
Including the Perryville Center, Aging Matters operates 32 senior centers providing hot meals for seniors.
