The Mae Volen Senior Center has come a long way from its beginnings as the Southside Senior Center in 1968. The Center has grown from a general family center with few resources to a large, multi-service organization that provides transportation, adult daycare, case management services, food services and life enrichment programs to tens of thousands of seniors each year.
“Today, the Center has two facilities, the largest being our 33,000-sq. ft. Boca Raton headquarters, which was built in 1986 and added on to in 2001,” explained Lon Lonker, director of Marketing. “On any given day, roughly 200 seniors use the Center, and on some days, its even busier.” The Centers mission is simple: to enhance the wellbeing of south Florida seniors, their caregivers and families. “Caring sets us apart,” said Lonker. “Everything we do is geared to providing services to our seniors and their families.”
The Center is home to a variety of programs designed to enrich seniors lives, including social outings, card games, lectures, dances, medical screenings, exercise classes, counseling programs and more. “Seniors can come in just to watch a movie or to take a computer class,” said Lonker. “Being here is like being part of a neighborhood club.”
Another core Center service is the adult daycare program, which is housed at the Boca facility and at another site in Delray Beach. A third daycare center will soon open in West Palm Beach. “The Centers adult daycare is based on individualized care planning,” Lonker said. “Each participant is evaluated based on individual interests and abilities and the persons care plan is based on that evaluation.”
Lonker stressed, “Our programs are designed to keep seniors active to the extent that they can participate. No one sits at Mae Volen, unless they have to. Its a unique philosophy in daycareour programs are all about providing socialization and encouraging mental and physical activity as a way to enhance clients lives.”
As the Center has grown, so has its transportation component. Each year, the organizations 26 handicap-accessible vehicles provide 70,000 rides to seniors at little or no cost to the riders. Now the second-largest private transportation provider in Palm Beach County, the Centers vehicles log more than half-a-million miles per year.
“We take it for granted that when we want a quart of milk, we can just hop in the car and go grab it,” said Lonker. “But what do you do if youre a senior who doesnt drive and needs food or medicine?” In addition to providing transportation, the Center also provides meal services at 10 different sites around the county and meal delivery for home-bound seniors.
In-home care management services are also offered to seniors and caregivers who may need some assistance. Staff arranges for help with activities of daily living, like bathing and food preparation, and also respite for caregivers who need a break. “Caregivers have a whole different set of issuesits a 24/7 job, and they often run out of time, money and patience. For this reason, we not only offer in-home services, but provide seminars and support groups to help these individuals,” said Lonker.
“While many organizations focus on educating caregivers about the disease model and home-based medical support, we approach caregiver education very differently,” he added. “Caregivers have their own importance in our support programs. We help caregivers identify what it is they need to do to take care of themselves, and we try to find ways to make their lives easier. We focus on practical issues that will contribute to the caregivers wellbeing.”
Providing all of these services costs money, and the Center relies on endowments, grants and donations to help them in their mission. Membership to the Center is available for $40 a year, though seniors dont have to be members to take advantage of many of the Centers services.
“The biggest problem were facing is that there are 370,000 people over the age of 60 in Palm Beach County, and almost 28 percent of them suffer from a disability, a physical disorder or some form of dementia,” said Lonker. “About 50,000 of them suffer from Alzheimers. They need our help, and in Palm Beach County there are probably fewer than 4,000 daycare, assisted living and nursing spaces dedicated for dementia care.
“We try to fill the void wherever we can, but senior services are always getting cut back,” he added. “We could triple the attendance at our daycare programs if we had more funding, whether from private or public sources.”
