 |
October 2007
HELLO TO EVERYONE!
The Hudson Senior Friend’s organization had its “FOOD FOR THOUGHT” free breakfast at the Portuguese Club Pavilion last month and it was very successful. One of the goals of this meeting was to attract new people.
The Hudson Senior Friends organization had 80 people in attendance, we were very happy to see new faces and equally happy to see familiar ones. Senator Pam Resor spoke of the “Friends” past success in raising $40,000.00 for the Feasibility Study, wished the Friends continued success in fundraising for the senior center renovation project, and looked forward to a “Ribbon Cutting” ceremony with the completion of the project. We in turn, thanked Senator Resor for her support of the CDBG grant money, ($260,000.00) we received for the Architectural Design phase. Hudson seniors should be proud of the fact that the first $300,000.00 of this project has not cost the Town of Hudson anything! Our work is far from done. Please come to the next
Friends meeting October 10th at 9:15. We will be discussing a couple of major fundraising ideas that came from people after the last meeting. These ideas have potential to raise a significant amount of money, but again, we will need the help of others to make it work, especially in the area of computer know how, marketing and negotiating skills. As I said last month, there is a lot of “Brain Power” in our retirement communities. Don’t be shy, share your skills, talents, and help us make these fundraising ideas a reality! (To find out what they are, you have to attend the next Friends meeting.)
Reaching out to our community
Recognizing that the senior center renovation project requires a lot of involvement from our elder population, the Senior Center staff and Friend’s Officer’s continue to make valiant efforts to encourage new people to get involved by reaching out to our 55 and over communities. We have scheduled “presentations” within those communities, usually in the evening, to introduce ourselves, talk about the center, the programs offered and most importantly our social services. To date, we have presented to over 120 people. Our last presentation was at Quail Run. We were so surprised to see approximately 80 people in attendance. Thank you to Quail Run for inviting us, we had a wonderful time, and we now invite you all to come to our Friend’s meeting held at
our senior center.
October 3rd at 6:30pm, we will be going back to the Esplanade, with snacks, to revisit our Friends there. This visit will be casual and simply an update as to what is going on, and what you would like to see going on! We look forward to seeing our Friends at the Esplanade on Oct 3rd. The Esplanade is also cordially invited to our Friends meeting, Oct 10th at 9:15am.
Impressive areas of Growth
This past year has been very exciting for the Hudson Senior Center. I am very pleased to report that in fiscal year 07 we increased our social services by well over 400%. That is just amazing!! Our Social Service Department consists of one full time person, Renee Grenier, paid by the Town of Hudson, and one part time person, Ana Salomao, our Bilingual Social Service Advocate who is paid by the State Formula Grant. Both are new and happen to be very knowledgeable and educated in the field of geriatrics. I attribute this successful increase in Social Services to their hard work and strong commitment to our elder population.
Another area of growth is our Meals on Wheels Program. Last year volunteers delivered 270 meals a week, or 1080 meals a month which works out to 12,960 meals a year. The meals on wheels volunteers have done an outstanding job. Many times, these volunteers are the only people that may see the elderly home bound person in a day. This program has a total of 25 volunteer drivers and they volunteered 1441 hours for the 07 fiscal year. Communication between the drivers and the senior center is crucial. If a driver feels that there may be a problem or concern about a client, they tell us at the center and we look into the situation as soon as possible. We are all grateful for this program and all the people who volunteer their time everyday in all kinds of weather. These
volunteers really make a difference in the lives of our homebound seniors.
To everyone who works so hard at our center I say “Thank you for all that you do!”
Janice
| |
