In one way or another, Pat Hensley expects the Will County Senior Services Center to touch the lives of every family in Will and Grundy Counties.
While the aspirations of the agency’s director may sound lofty, they also may come true. This 31-year-old private agency, housed on the first floor of a Joliet high-rise for senior citizens, offered services that ranged from help with income taxes to assisted living services to 33,490 clients in 1997.
“Families are crossing the spectrum. We look at ourselves as not just being for seniors but for the whole community,” said Hensley, who lives near DeKalb.
The center began as a cooperative effort of the Joliet Housing Authority and Joliet Park District to provide services for seniors. A space was cleared on the ground floor of the John Murphy Center, a senior high-rise, and early offerings emphasized social and recreational opportunities.
Now, while the center offers plenty of opportunities for fun (popular choices include dinner/theater trips and sessions of riverboat gambling), it also schedules health screenings such as blood pressure and glaucoma tests or immunizations at different neighborhood locations.
The center also sponsors special-interest classes such as woodworking, crocheting, watercolor painting and exercise, including country line dancing.
“We recently started a computer class at Joliet West High School so our seniors can learn basic computer skills,” Hensley said. “And we have a waiting list.”
Caseworkers sent by the center can help clients and their families assess what help they’ll need to remain in their homes and link them with the proper agencies to provide support such as grocery shopping, help with laundry, house cleaning or even bathing, Hensley said.
And each year, the senior services center has staff on hand 24 hours a day to investigate reports of elder abuse and neglect in the two-county area. In 1997 alone, there were 117 cases. Most of these involve physical, sexual or financial exploitation. The center employs 64 staffers, 33 full time.
In addition, caseworkers serve as nursing home ombudsmen to inform families of their rights and provide information about nursing home options.
“Our staff is here to help with any information and assistance,” Hensley said.
Another 24 clients receive regular visits from senior companions, trained by Catholic Charities. The companion visits the homebound senior and may simply visit or help with things such as writing letters.
“They are a friend,” Hensley said.
The center’s services are open to anyone over age 50, and Hensley estimates that the age of her clientele ranges up to 100.
The agency’s 1998 budget is $1.7 million, of which 60 percent is paid with federal and state dollars. Townships, the United Way and other fundraisers provide the rest of the funding. Activity fees for eligible seniors are kept low, Hensley said, ranging from 50 cents to $5.
The center also offers a nutrition program that provides a hot noon meal to 540 seniors at 11 community locations five days a week. Another 300 are on the waiting list.
“The 60-year-old (and older) population is growing,” Hensley said. “This brings us a lot of challenges.”
Home-delivered meals, shuttled by 300 volunteers, go to those whose doctors will verify they are unable to cook for themselves.
Mary Alldread is a senior citizen who lives above the offices in the high-rise. Each day, she comes downstairs to help pack the meals, a volunteer activity she said helped her out of a depressed state.
“I didn’t want to stay in my room, so I came down to help,” Alldread said. “I’ve come a long way. It’s helped me to be around people. Before I wouldn’t talk. . . . Now I do.”
Volunteer Rose Gomora of Joliet has been checking in people for the noon meals for about 10 years now.
“I spend my time here because I like it,” she said. “It’s wonderful, and it’s something for me to do.”
“We couldn’t run without our volunteers,” Hensley said. “It would cost us $2 million (a year) in staff time if we had to pay our volunteers.”
Marty Campus of Joliet, supervisor of the nutrition program, agrees that it wouldn’t work without her stable of volunteers.
“I’m thankful for the volunteers who are very, very faithful,” she said. “If it’s raining, snowing, whatever kind of weather, they go out there. And they even find time to stop and talk with the seniors.”
Besides the nutrition volunteers, another 300 help with the center’s other services. For instance, Jim Kaplan of Joliet has helped prepare income tax returns for six years.
“This is a good place to interact with people. This is something I enjoy,” he said. “It gives me a good feeling to help people out, and it’s good to be able to put them at ease.”
Some volunteers help with office work, and others run the gift shop.
Right now the center is in the middle of a fundraising campaign, having raised $1 million of the $2 million needed to restore a building a few blocks from the John Murphy Center. New headquarters would mean increased program and administrative space, Hensley said; the latter is currently scattered in three locations.
“With the projected growth and need for our services, it’ll be nice to have everything in one location,” she said.
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The Senior Services Center of Will County, 310 N. Joliet St., Joliet, will hold its annual dinner April 24 at Harrah’s River Casino in Joliet. Tickets are $50 each. Call 815-723-9713.
