By Colleen Nelson
Forget Cheers! If you want to go where everyone knows your name, try the Waynesburg Community Center. Yeah, I know – they used to use the word Senior, but you know how that S word goes over like a lead balloon with baby boomers and empty nesters these days. So forget Senior and think Community – a place to hang out, visit with old friends, maybe do lunch, stretch into some free yoga, get a line dance groove going, hit the Internet, or do a craft. If you have time and would enjoy visiting those who don’t get around much anymore, sign up to help fill an empty slot on the Meals on Wheels schedule.
Some happy friends and neighbors have been doing this and more for years. And you probably know their names.
I’ve loved coming here since the early days, when the Center was on Richhill St. and the rooms were bathed in stained glass light. Carolyn Morris, and later Carol Andrew, then Tina Raber were site coordinators and I was a volunteer with the federally funded Retired Senior Volunteer Program. For ten years my RSVP boss Carolyn Capozza and I went to centers in three counties to record volunteer hours to garner continuing government funding for these initiatives. It was like visiting family. In 2008, I wrote about Francis Rafiel and his homemade piñatas that he gave away to children of all ages. I got to know Bob Rice and his wonderful family history going back to the Civil War that he put on display at the Pioneer Festival that partied on for ten years at West Greene High School. I watched Pansy Six hand stitch bindings on the quilts that got finished at the center and fell in love with her kind ways.
Fast forward a decade and I’m back, in the bullpen helping deliver Meals on Wheels when someone calls off, driving hot meals in and around the borough, crisscrossing the historic back streets and pioneer roads of Waynesburg, finding smiles and wonderful stories with every run.
It’s great to find Tina Raber at the helm on Morris Street because her enthusiasm for her “dream job” of 30 years and counting is contagious. The county transportation vans pull up starting at 7:30 a.m. when volunteers Jim Grove and Ruth Zack arrive to put on the coffee for the early bird arrivals. The quilt room becomes a coffee klatch as others, like Center aide Jesse Rush and groups of Bonner Scholar volunteers, arrive to get the kitchen ready for lunch. Regulars settle into their routines, reading the morning paper, playing some Wi bowling or maybe checking email in the computer room or getting out the center’s stash of iPads to play a game or two before bingo starts and the quarters hit the table. One day a month, bingoers will play for the household products that Senior Life provides, with agency worker Mary Pratt calling the numbers and passing out good advice.
The parking lot fills quickly as 10 a.m. approaches and Meals on Wheels drivers arries. The van from Carmichaels Center pulls in filled with insulated bags of freshly prepared hot meals and cold extras for the day’s lunch.
Drivers will be back from the Center’s three runs in time to eat lunch that starts at 11:30, or go home full of energy to jump start their own day.
All told, more than 100 meals are eaten daily, either at the center or delivered to those who for many reasons cannot navigate their kitchens to make a balanced meal and have signed up for this service. And every weekday Meals on Wheels volunteers are cheerful visitors to the homebound, maybe the only ones who will stop by to see that all is well.
“I’ve been doing Meals on Wheels for 25 years,” Robin Throckmorton tells me with a grin as she conducts an impromptu craft class making adorable quilted whatnot purses out of candy bags. “I started when my last child went to Kindergarten.” Today she’s back by popular demand for this 1 p.m. workshop. The Center is open until 3:30 p.m. and county transportation is available to those who qualify and might need a ride home. Good works are ongoing here. Thanks to Jim Grove, who saw a plastic bag rug loom on Youtube last year and made one for the Center, woven mats for the homeless are now made and donated to area Lions Clubs to distribute. Some regulars cut the bags and roll the “plarn” into colorful balls, others weave bright striped patterns into being. Bonnie Shough uses some of the plarn to crochet more mats for distribution while watching TV at home.
Every first Monday of the month, Jim Grove and the rest of the site council meet with Tina to plan fundraisers and community outreach projects. Tina tells me that Greene County Historical Society Museum director Matt Cumberledge has asked the Center to help decorate a Christmas tree at the museum and she will be asking everyone, including the Meals on Wheels volunteers to make an ornament.
Something tells me I’ll be getting out my glue gun and my paints real soon!
Greene County’s six centers have their distinct personalities and I love them all. So in the coming months, I’ll be back to take you to Carmichaels, where the Meals on Wheels lunches get cooked, packaged and loaded for delivery, to Jefferson, Bobtown and West Greene centers that are open one day a week and to Mt. Morris, where Tina spends Wednesdays working her magic, coordinating activities that bring in the regulars in ever increasing numbers.
If you want to know more, stop by a center near you and grab a monthly menu, activities schedule and Senior Times – a monthly newspaper distributed by Area Agency on Aging, who also funds the county transportation to all senior centers. Senior Times is full of information on programs that are available, scams to watch out for and updates on the latest health and wellness advancements.
If it’s time to bring your loved ones to a center for some extra socialization and help them build bridges back into the community, or if it’s time for you to help out in your spare time now that you’re retired or the kids are in school, give Tina or Blueprints a call. Take it from me – you’ll be glad you did.
Oh, and this just in. For the first time since the Center opened, there is not a waiting list to get your quilt top quilted. Charging for quilting and raffling off quilts the Center makes is part of how they help pay the bills. So now’s the time to get that family heirloom finished. Give Tina a call!
Waynesburg Community Center – Mon through Friday 7:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. 724-627-6366. Need a ride to and from the Center? Call Greene County Transportation – 724-627-6778.