Senior Center provides meals and more
Darlene and Anita Davis, both of Moses Lake, check out some quilts their club is making for donation. The club members made a quilt for the Moses Lake Senior Center, which will be raffled in December, with tickets sold at the Health and Wellness Expo Sept. 28.
MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake Senior Center members will be selling tickets for a fundraising quilt at the Health and Wellness Expo, scheduled for Sept. 28 in the ATEC Building at Big Bend Community College. The winner of the holiday quilt, one of three the senior center raffles each year, will be announced in December.
The expo is sponsored by the Columbia Basin Herald, Samaritan Healthcare, Confluence Health (Moses Lake Clinic), Moses Lake Community Health, Costco and the Columbia Basin Hospital Foundation.
The Health and Wellness Expo is an evolution of the former Senior Living Expo, and health information fairs sponsored by local health providers, organizer Tera Redwine said. "It's a joint community effort" to bring health and fitness information to Grant County residents, she said. "Stay active, live well and be well," she said.
Money raised through the quilt raffle will be used to help pay for the center's nutrition program, Director Carry Liles said. The nutrition program is one of many activities-programs-events at or sponsored by the senior center, she said.
The nutrition program offers lunch every weekday (holidays excepted) at the senior center, 608 East Third Ave. The center also delivers meals to people who can't leave their homes throughout Grant County, including Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy, Warden, Royal City, Soap Lake, Wilson Creek, George and Beverly, Liles said.
And what else goes on at the senior center? "OK, here we go," Liles said.
The senior center has a fundraising thrift store, and is a distribution site for the Feed America program sponsored by Second Harvest, Spokane, 11 months of the year. Then there's the bridge and pinochle clubs, the coffee club, the pool players, the bingo players, two different exercise programs, the computer room, the Thursday night dance, the visits from a podiatrist, a visit from a dental hygienist, the safe driving program. That's it - no, wait, there's a yearly picnic for senior center members. "A senior can come into this building and find something to do at all times," Liles said.
That's just activities sponsored by the senior center. A square dance club meets at the senior center, and the Humane Society holds its annual spaghetti feed there. The Desert Artists hold meetings at the senior center, and so does a TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) chapter, an AARP chapter, quilters and needle crafters (knit and crochet).
In addition, "we keep this building rented out," Liles said. It's available for weddings, receptions, bridal and baby showers, birthday parties, other events, she said.
"We answer a lot of questions for a lot of people," Liles said, people who are looking for services, or need direction to a charitable organization. The senior center also sells bus tickets, both for the Grant County Transit Authority and People to People systems.
The senior center is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Membership is $20 per year and is open to anybody age 18 or older. The attached thrift store is open the same hours as the senior center and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.