The Boulder-Basin Senior Center, which came under the stewardship of a new board Oct. 15, is making plans to expand its community presence and implement a new calendar of events and activities.
New Senior Center Board President Pat Lewis, along with Secretary Tammy Murray, Treasurer Bettie Schlueter, and members Vickie Cordeiro, Robert Lewis, Stephanie Mehus and Kathy Dyer, says that modernizing the Senior Center’s services is key to attracting new membership and protecting its future in Jefferson County.
“All of us here are passionate about keeping this place alive,” said Lewis. “We all have a deep impulse to serve this community, and feel very strongly that the Senior Center is a valuable part of our town.
“Be it exhaustion, or just a lack of interest, no one’s stepped up to improve how things happen here. Our new board is trying to do just that.”
Jefferson County’s population is aging steadily. In 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, people 55 and older accounted for 39.7% of the county’s population, with a big bulge of those between 65 and 74. That’s up from 30.9% in 2010.
Yet the Senior Center’s membership has dwindled over time. Since the 1990’s, the Senior Center has lost approximately 60% of its members, according to Lewis, and now only has 25. In the 1980s, she said, between 30 and 40 guests could be expected at any given meal service.
The Senior Center’s facility on Boulder’s Main Street currently rents space to the See & Save, a thrift shop which contributes 60 percent of its monthly sales as rent, and The Hair Depot, a small, privately owned beauty salon. In addition to the $10 dollar annual membership fee it collects from its members, the Senior Center averages roughly $2000 in monthly revenues.
Lewis says that, financially, this is more than an adequate amount to support the Senior Center’s continued operation. However, in order to increase the number of community members utilizing the space, she, and other board members, are building a social media presence to more effectively broadcast the Center’s programming. The Senior Center also recently reduced the minimum age for membership to 50 from 55.
“Building out a Facebook page, and consistently using email, are great first steps to helping us more easily connect with community members, and finding new ways to make our space available to them,” said Lewis.
“Like, look at this kitchen: it’s beautiful! And there’s a lot more we could use it for. We’re thinking birthdays, parties, meetings, and the like; the facility is very underused, and we need to find ways to bring new people in.” (The center will continue to offer low-cost lunches on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.)
In addition to expanding kitchen access, the Senior Center is pushing to build out new educational opportunities. Having recently created a private office space, with computer access, for members, the Senior Center hopes to offer a series of courses ranging from safe technology use to self-defense. It also intends to host a weekly BINGO game, and other, more consistently scheduled social events yet to be determined.
“We really just want to liven up the space,” said Lewis. “There is so much potential here, and it’s sad that so few people take advantage of what we have to offer. We’re going to let people know we’re here, and that we have something of interest to offer. But we’re taking baby steps! We don’t want to rush anything, and we are very much not business people. We are community people.”
Lewis also made clear that she, and other board members, are open to community suggestions as to how best to improve the Senior Center. Its next public meeting will be on Jan. 21, 2025, and board members can be contacted directly at boulderbasinseniorcenter@gmail.com.
