New Senior Centers Cater to Boomers With Enriching Activities

If you or your parents shun senior centers, thinking they’re boring places where elderly people go to sit around and eat, you might want to check out today’s newer centers.

Some of the more modern variety—many of them not government-run—are offering enriching activities people of any age would enjoy, says an article at the website for New Jersey newspaper The Record. In fact, one center—the Korean Community Center in Englewood—goes ahead and invites in more ages.

Its mission is to give older Koreans a way to serve the community. It has evolved into the multigenerational activity center, with art, cooking, exercise and wellness programs that serve children as young as 4 and seniors as old as 90.

Many of the center’s oldest members organize an art contest for kids or run other programs, in keeping with the founders’ philosophy that the best way to keep seniors healthy is to keep them active and give them an opportunity to help themselves and others, said Dr. Kye-Eun Ma, the center’s president.

The 100 classes and programs the center offers each month attract all ages, including the rigorous exercise classes, which some of the center’s oldest members have signed up for.

“It’s not determined by age,” Ma said. “It’s determined by ability and by interest.”

Instead of segregating older people from the rest of the community, this senior center gives them the ability to help it. If you have a parent struggling with loneliness but too active to want to go to a traditional senior center, perhaps one of these new kinds is nearby.

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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents. If you have any questions about this post or need help finding senior-care options for a loved one, call 1-866-483-4896 to speak with a care advisor in your area.