Meeting to discuss how and what to build
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

"(The point is) to get the people together." - NORM GIROUARD

The Council on Aging and Senior Center Director Susan Fisher will be holding a open meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the American Legion on Main Street to start determining how to plan for a new senior center.

"What we did was we invited the Planning Board and the Advisory Board and we invited (State Rep.) Lew Evangeldis," Fisher said. "This is to discuss the funding that is available for a new senior center. … It's basically a 'how to get started' meeting."

Fisher said she was able to send out letters to the town officials to invite them to come to the meeting and she has posted the information about the upcoming meeting at the senior center and in the Town Hall.

"It's hard to reach the ones that don't get involved," she said. "They don't want to get involved because they feel like they get no where."

Fisher does expect the process to take a while.

Over the course of the last few months the seniors and the Board of Selectmen have begun a dialogue about any future senior center. There have been discussion about renovating the old town hall on Bacon Street but discussion are now focused on building on a new site, 69 West Main St., where the town is looking to build senior housing.

Selectmen and Town Coordinator Karen Murphy are still working on developing the request for proposals for the senior housing. They want to get price estimates on this before they start the building process for the senior center.

The old town hall is expected to be very expensive to renovate and it is expected to be cheaper to build a new building on other land owned by the towns.

Fisher said there is some concern about taking the senior center out of the center of town but said it may not be much of a problem. She said 99 percent of the seniors that use the center drive to it and a very limited number of people use the bus provided by the Montachusett Opportunity Council to get there, though it would still be offered to residents regardless of where the new center is located.

"(The point is) to get the people together," said Norm Girouard, a member of the COA and the president of Friendship Club.

Girouard said it is hard to get anyone to come to the current senior center because all of the activities are so spread out. He said many of the meetings are held in the basement of St. Edward's Church and the meals are held in the Congregational Church's hall.

Girouard also said the limited activities that can be offered deter some of the younger seniors.

"We aren't the type of activities they are interested in," Girouard said. "We're just a bunch of old folks in their opinion."

Fisher and Girouard hope a new facility will bring in a new group of both old and young.

"The new place that we want will attract the younger seniors," Fisher said.

She and Girouard said this is because it will allow a variety of activities to occur at the same time because the goal would be to have a number of different rooms and different facilities.

"We would even have night functions," Fisher said.

The senior center is open to those ages 60 and older and can provide either services needed by the elderly or can help provide a social outlet.

About 125 to 150 people come through the senior center in the course of a week but Fisher said a number of these are people who visit every day so they get counted more than once.

"I definitely think we'd have triple (the people) if we have a new senior center," she said.