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Like a tailgate every day

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October 3, 2019

While autumn in our neck of the woods does not guarantee cooler weather and beautiful foliage, it does guarantee a skyrocketing amount of garnet/black or orange/purple seen on a given Saturday afternoon. Fall in Columbia means one thing: football.

Football games are a weekly opportunity for us to come together with friends. They are social activities that enable us to escape the sometimes harsher realities of the daily grind. They bring the opportunity to share a table with those we care about, and meet some new friends with similar passions along the way. The games and the activities around them become shared communal experiences that unite in ways that few other experiences can.

The same can also be said for the four Wellness Centers that Senior Resources operates for seniors in our community in North Columbia, Blythewood, Hopkins, and Eastover. These centers provide seniors with a daily social experience where they can interact with each other, share a meal, and improve their daily wellbeing in a social setting. For more than 120 seniors who attend daily, the wellness centers are like a football tailgate.

Most days you will not find the typical tailgate games, but we have plenty of cards, board games, and bingo to inspire conversation, interaction, and even a little competition. While we may not have a corn hole game going at all times, we do have regular exercise classes to keep our seniors active. We provide “away game” trips when the centers are able to load buses for the day for a shared social outing. And while I am certain that many of our seniors certainly wish we would serve fried chicken, pigs-in-a-blanket, and chips, our meals are just as tasty and provide dietitian-approved healthy and balanced nutrition.

These elements come together to give our seniors the social, nutritional, and educational resources they need to live independent and healthy lives at home without fear of becoming isolated from the community. The resources they receive keep them active and healthy so they avoid expensive medical events and hospitalization. Senior wellness centers allow non-homebound older adults to “age in place” and delay or avoid the costly and emotional transition of moving out of their homes and into assisted living or nursing facilities.

The four wellness centers and the women and men who utilize them are a vital part of the mission at Senior Resources. So no matter if you are blaring Sandstorm from your minivan in the Friday car-pool lane, or if you have a bright orange tiger tail sticking out of your trunk all weekend, the success of these wellness centers is something we can all celebrate together.

— Andrew Boozer, Executive Director