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Senior center gets facelift grant |
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Tuesday, 12 August 2008 |
The Benton Senior Activity Center soon will receive a facelift, thanks to a $240,000 community development block grant.
In a recent ceremony at the state Capitol, center representatives and city officials received the grant, which is being administered through the Central Arkansas Planning and Development Agency.
The grant will be used to make improvements to the Benton facility at 210 Jefferson St.
Sherry Parsons, director of the center, said she can hardly wait to get started on the improvements scheduled for the facility.
“We’re very excited about this,” Parsons said. “It will really be nice.”
Central Arkansas Develop-ment Council oversees the operation of the center.
“We’ll be getting all new doors, new flooring, new windows and new ceilings, and we’ll be painting throughout the center,” Parsons said.
The overall decor will be different, she noted. “We’ll no longer have a neutral, institutional look,” she said.
“We’re going to have bright, happy color, and all of the improvements, like the windows and doors, will make the center more energy-efficient,” she added.
Lee Ann Pool, grant administrator of the Central Arkansas Planning and Development Agency, and Marsha Guffey, community development director for the city, worked on the grant application, Parsons noted.
One of the major changes to the facility will involve the relocation and expansion of the center’s gift shop, she said.
“This can be especially beneficial to the center because it will enable shoppers to enjoy it more and it’s one of our biggest fundraisers,” she said.
Now located in a small area at the end of a hallway — which is used for the overflow items — the shop will be moved across the center to what is now an adjoining storage area, Parsons explained.
“This will free up more space in the center itself and give us an opportunity to display the items we have in the shop,” she said.
Before any of the improvements begin at the facility, an asbestos check had to be made, Parsons noted.
She had not expected the presence of asbestos in the facility, which was built in 1975. “If the building were older, I think it might be more likely,” she said, “but we’ll find out.”
However, asbestos was found in the center’s flooring and it will have to be abated before new flooring can be added, Jim Towe, community services supervisor for the city of Benton, said.
“The city will do the abatement,” Towe said. “We’ve been talking to the administrators of grant and don’t want to take up floor and have to wait for money to come through. When they get ready to do the renovations, it can be done quickly. It’s a four-day process, Friday-Monday, so that you have a minimum down time having to close the facility.
“We can’t start this until we get the OK from Central Arkansas Planning and Development Agency,” he said.
Towe said he recently “hand-carried (CAPDA) a copy of the survey showing that there is asbestos in the floor in the building. We’re just waiting for them to say ‘OK, you can start.’”
“We’re responsible only for the abatement,” he said. “They (Central Arkansas Planning and Development Agency) are handling the RFQs for the architect and the RFPs.
“It will probably be October at the earliest before we get started,” he said.
Towe said the entire project will take six-eight weeks. “The asbestos abatement will cost around $18,000,” he said.
The center’s current facility opened in 1975. Initially, the center was located in the old Christian Church structure on East Street.
“It’s important for us to have nice facilities for seniors,” Parsons said. “People are living longer, and they’re more active.
“This facility is so important to the people who come here,” she said. “Some just come to visit and watch others. Some like to socialize. They enjoy the music and the bands that perform here, and others enjoy the quilting, bingo and other games.
“It’s a wonderful place to cure loneliness,” Parsons said. “When they’re here, they get their minds off their problems.”
Health education classes are taught at the center.
Parsons has taught a 20-week course called “Active Living Every Day,” which teaches people to move from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one.”
While she’s excited about the upcoming improvements, Parsons dreams of even bigger things for the center.
She hopes someday to build an adjacent health center on the site where the old water plant facility was located. That structure recently was demolished.
“I’d like to have a walking track, an aquatic pool and all of the facilities that I think the seniors would use,” she said.
For now, though, Parsons is ready for the upcoming improvements.
“We’re so lucky to have so many people who enjoy the center, and we have a wonderful staff and dedicated volunteers,” she said.
“We have wonderful volunteers who do everything from singing with the band, preparing foods, delivering meals, working in the gift shop, working with crafts, teaching classes and serving as receptionists and in clerical jobs,” Parsons said.
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