P’ville’s Center Ensures Seniors Stay Connected Through Crisis
If these were normal times, the Clinton Street Players would be rehearsing their skits replete with costumes and sets for their friends at the Clinton Street Senior Center in Pleasantivlle.
They would have been flexing their thespian muscles at Arc Stages across the street.
But these are not normal times and the performance, scheduled for last Friday, had to be canceled due to the social distancing protocol and prohibition on gathering, in the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Clinton Street Senior Center closed its doors in early April. The three-person staff working to serve the seniors includes Joni Ehrlich, director of senior services, Mary Gerlanc, senior office assistant, and Recreation Assistant Vanessa Bongarzone. Their goal is maintaining the vital connection to some 600 seniors living in the area who regularly participate in the center’s robust recreational and educational programs and services.
An average day at the center sees 60 to 80 people come through its doors. Keeping that connection alive now is critical. Ehrlich said the center calls 150 to 200 seniors a week who are on the call list, 90 percent of whom are village residents. About 250 seniors twice a week, she said.
Ehrlich said phone conversations have been getting longer as seniors increasingly feel isolated and lonely.
“They are realizing how much they miss being with everybody and how important social contact is,” Ehrlich said. “You can hear the anxiety in their voices. We’re finding things out about them we never knew. The situation is compounded for those who are already frail. It’s disconcerting.”
Mental health resources are suggested to those who need the support; the center recommends contacting the Westchester Department of Health hotline to speak to counselors by phone or chat online. Those services are free.
With the center’s weekday lunch program suspended, the center has been delivering meals to about 14 seniors who live in the building’s apartments. To minimize the number of volunteer workers in the kitchen, the Clinton Street Center receives prepared meals provided by Hubbard’s Cupboard, a Port Chester-based meal delivery service.
“Our volunteers helping to deliver the meals are limited to one person a car so only one person is touching packages and heating units,” said Erlich. “Our chef, Richard Murden, also helps deliver the meals.”
Several local restaurateurs have also offered to donate food to seniors and others in need, including Jonathan Langsam and Rosie Hernandez, owners of Falafel Taco on Wheeler Avenue, who are also part of a GoFundMe effort to provide meals (https://www.gofundme.com/f/feeding-pleasantville-kids-and-seniors).
“Those running the GoFundMe reached out to us to assess our needs,” Ehrlich said. “It would be nice to have meals that are something different.”
The center also has freezers full of food and is planning to create meals before the food spoils. It has enough for about 350 meals, which translates to 20 to 30 meals a day, or up to 60 meals a week, if there are twice-weekly deliveries, said Ehrlich. “This is still in the planning stages, but hopefully we can start a ‘drive-by’ free delivery for seniors by the end of the month,” she said.
About 200 seniors are comfortable with engaging online and actively respond to the center’s e-mails.
“But a big chunk of our seniors do not connect on the internet,” said Ehrlich. “For those, we send a printed packet of jokes, games and pertinent information every few weeks.”
Those who are online can check links sent by the center, including virtual tours of botanical gardens, the orchid show, holy week church services and various concerts.
“Some are playing bridge and mahjong online,” Ehrlich said. “We are trying to get the choral group, our harmonica and guitar groups to use the Zoom platform.”
Ehrlich said virtually recreating social events that usually happen in person is the challenge. “We are taking some of the pieces of what we normally do that keeps us connected, like smaller online groups. We are learning as we are doing.”
A link has been set up by the center for those needing to sign up for free meal deliveries at
Abby is a local journalist who has reported on breaking news for more than 20 years. She currently covers community issues in The Examiner as a full-time reporter and has written for the paper since its inception in 2007. Read more from Abby’s editor-author bio here. Read Abbys’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/ab-lub2019/
