City Council Work Session

Lesley Abashianstaffsenior center coordinator. And then I've got the community response team. I've got Malika Walters, who's a licensed clinician, and she's a clinician for the community response team. I've got Jay Davison, who is the community paramedic for the community response team. and then our newest member we have Carrie Carrie Johns who is the police officer for the community response team so all these individuals you're going to hear from at some point and it'll probably be about time where you're tired of listening to me so it'll be good thing okay the the topic of aging is important it's not just important for the residents that are getting older but it's also for those family members that are caring for those

Speaker 14Anne, okay. Good evening, everybody. For those of you that don't know so much about the Senior Center, I was going to go over three brief points about programming, our advisory council, and some information about the membership and attendance rates. So our Our center currently has 51 programs and activities we organize into, I would say, three categories. We have volunteer-led drop-in programs, staff-directed programs, and registered classes with paid instructors. So this mix allows us to provide flexibility, structure, and skill-based opportunities that meet our social, physical, and educational interests of our members. Just to explain a little more, the first category, the volunteer-led drop-in programs,

And from that amount, 60% are county and 40% are city. We do have a handful that people drop in from out of the city county to pay membership, either like a $5 day pass or they'll do a year. So we also track new members coming for the very first time. And in the first quarter, we had 142 first time people come through. The participation also remains very strong and it grows. We average about 125 checking in a day, up to 160 during peak events. We do send our newsletter out to about 4,700 people in our Older Americans database there. So in conclusion, we have our programming, our advisory council, and engaged membership. We work together to ensure the senior center continues to meet the needs of our senior community.

Catherine Readdais. So I'm just going to show you my Young at Heart Senior Center card because this is a very unflattering photo. I'm one of the 7,000 people who are members who every time I walk in there, I never have it on me, so I don't swipe it for you to know that I'm one of the 146. But, you know, this is something that everybody can get. I want to give a shout-out to Gloria Toner, who is a young-at-heart senior senator superstar. And she is the living embodiment of what it means to age gracefully and vibrantly in the city of Fairfax. and she might be your most senior member of the senior center.

no. Well, and, you know, and we've got somebody who's coming up with a 100th birthday on July 4th, which is Virginia Mahoney here in the city too. Just putting that out there because I'm thinking about Virginia, who will be 100 on the 4th of July. We do have a lot of people who have lived most of their lives here who are in different places in their lives and who require different kinds of supports and services. But, you know, one of the things earlier this evening we were discussing, the Willard Sherwood Center and the senior center that will go at the Willard Sherwood Center. And that is a facility for the 7,000 people who have this card to go in there and get the community connection to take the exercise classes to play pickleball or basketball or bocce to do.