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Austintown Senior Center bustling with activities as they welcome new puppy
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Mr. Fluffy acted as a vacuum as members of Cutting Edge, a woodcarving group, worked on their projects at the Austintown Senior Center.
The 12-week old puppy excitedly went from person to person to whatever caught his eye as Tom Evans, 65, worked on a wooden version of a 1968 Roadrunner car.
“It’s like a big family,” said Evans, who lives near the border between Austintown and Canfield. “People think you have to be 65 to come in” to the center.
Cutting Edge, which meets every Thursday from 9 to 11:30 a.m., is just one of the many activities filling the space at the township senior center, 100 Westchester Drive, which is free for Austintown residents but $36 a year for nonresidents. The facility is not just for seniors. Evans pointed out that the youngest member of their group is 14.
The center hosts meals, which have a cost, and bingo several times a week.
Jim Henshaw, center director, was chosen for that position in February 2012. A levy to fund the center was passed by township voters in 2011 after it had opened in 2010 and had run on donations.
“It’s been growing rapidly,” Henshaw said, noting it has almost reached 1,500 members. “A lot of people are confused about what a senior center is. ... It’s a giant social club.”
That levy was a 0.5-mill senior-services levy to raise $309,202 annually for five years and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $16 per year.
“Not everyone can do, or wants to do, everything,” Henshaw said. “The objective here is to get people to socialize, give them mental exercises because that’s very important in keeping your health and your youth, really.”
During a recent visit, there were groups playing cards or doing yoga while other members sat by themselves reading or knitting. All the while, Mr. Fluffy roamed the facility, splitting time as a vacuum and licking those who petted him.
“We’re trying to get people away from their television sets,” Evans said of Cutting Edge. “We’re trying to get people to come out and do things differently.”
He explained newcomers start out with a mouse — because that features every kind of cut one would have to make — and then progress from there, choosing what they want to carve. A group of women was working on Christmas trees, including JoAnn Claycomb, 68, of Austintown.
“I can relax and do this,” she said. She uses the wood carving, as well as painting, as a respite from caring for her husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease. “This does help me.”
In another part of the senior center, Hilda Townsend, 86, of Austintown, leads a group of women in making bookmark calendars with poems or song lyrics on them for special occasions. The group does between 80 and 100 a week, meeting each Thursday morning. “The more they talk, the more they get done,” Townsend said while the other women laughed.
“I love it. If you can’t find something fun here, something’s wrong with you,” Claycomb said.