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Liberty Township program caters to older residents
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Liberty Police Chief Richard Tisone talks to resident Ann Brown during the annual Senior Watch breakfast Tuesday at West Fork Roadhouse on Belmont Avenue. The program offers seniors wellness checks, lockboxes at their homes for emergency crews, and smoke detectors. The breakfast is an invitation-only event for the program’s participants.
By Jeanne Starmack | starmack@vindy.com
Liberty
In a corner booth at the West Fork Roadhouse on Belmont Avenue on Tuesday morning, Barbara Berndt sat contemplating why she’d come to the township’s annual Senior Watch breakfast.
Yes, she said, she’s used the program for a few years now. It offers wellness checks, lockboxes for emergency police and fire rescue entries, and free smoke alarms.
She gets a wellness check from township police and fire secretaries who make those phone calls through the program. Hers is once a week, and that’s appreciated.
But she’d come to the breakfast for another reason: She just wanted to get out of the house and maybe try to meet some people.
It did seem to be a nice treat — an invitation-only buffet breakfast for program members that the township pays for with Trumbull County senior levy taxes.
Berndt smiled as she looked across the room at the tables filled with people eating and chatting.
They’d just finished listening to a speaker — Megan Conzett from the Trumbull County Area Agency on Aging. She’d talked about a new home-repairs program the agency is offering that will replace hot-water tanks, deal with leaky pipes, repair roofs and install handicap ramps.
Good information for seniors who need help once in a while but live independently, like Berndt does.
She’s lived in Liberty since 1961, where’s she’s raised six kids and worked until 2012, she said.
Now, those six kids have “their own lives,” she said.
For her, the breakfast was a chance to socialize, and it led to some leads for other opportunities to do so.
On her way out, she stopped by township Trustee Jodi Stoyak’s table. Stoyak told her about the Liberty Historical Society, which meets the first Thursday of every month at 10 a.m. in the township building at 1315 Churchill Road.
About 50 to 60 seniors meet there. They get updates on what’s going on in the township from officials, she said. The group even organizes trips to township restaurants, Stoyak said.
Berndt left then, with what she came for — a chance to meet people.
Stoyak said the township wants more seniors to become involved in the watch program, which is funded annually by a $5,000 grant from the levy. About 35 participate now. Call the township administration building at 330-759-1315 and speak to Martha at ext. 106.