When you enter the large brick building on Rigsbee Avenue, you feel as if you might have walked into a student union on a college campus rather than the Durham Center for Senior Life. Maybe because the “seniors” there are having as much fun as college students – minus the annoying homework.
From the upper level, you can look over the railing to a large common area filled with round tables, where friends are playing dominoes, working on puzzles, having a coffee and talking, or crocheting while they wait for their Muscle Pump class to start.
Vonda Feamster, a retired special education teacher, started coming to the center in 2008. “My friend asked me what I was going to do now that I was retired. I did not think I was ready to go to a ‘senior center.’ I was the caregiver to my husband and my mother, but I came and discovered that this is a place to take time for myself,” Vonda says. “I first tried belly dancing and really liked it.”
Vonda went from just taking the class to being a member of the Golden Genies, a group of women who take belly dancing out into the community. “We promote healthy aging at nursing homes and teach people to dance, which helps them stay well in both mind and body,” Vonda says. Dancing is not all that Vonda does at the center; after taking computer and other exercise classes, she has decided to lead a stitchery club this year. “It’s a great way to socialize while everyone works on their sewing, needlepoint or crocheting.”
Life, Enhanced
“Participants at the senior center often go on to become volunteers here,” explains Cathy Stallcup, executive director. The mission of “enhancing the lives of older adults through education, recreation, nutrition and social services in a welcoming community setting” barely scratches the surface of all that goes on here.
Dan and Arlene Lutenegger recently moved from Minneapolis to the Durham Central Park Cohousing Community, which is within sight of the Center for Senior Life. “Dan has Parkinson’s, and we moved to Durham to be closer to the clinical trial he was in,” Arlene says. “Although we live in a supportive, intentional community, we also needed to meet people outside our cohousing life. The senior center has been integral to our life here.” Dan and Arlene participate in a broad array of exercise classes – such as Strong and Steady, yoga and stationary bike riding – as well as a Sudoku group. They’re big fans of Friday afternoon movies – “with popcorn,” Dan says.
Despite his Parkinson’s, Dan is quite the Ping-Pong player. “I played in the senior games,” he says. Arlene adds: “He does quite well.” Arlene, a retired librarian and psychologist, and Dan, an environmental studies consultant, say the center “helps us with aging in place.” Even if Durham is a new place to them.
Community Within a Community
Vonda and the Luteneggers praise the support of PharmAssist, the onsite agency that helps seniors with prescriptions. “They aid us in figuring out which Medicare Part D plan we should be on for our particular needs,” Arlene says.
Although the center helps anyone older than 55 with everything from wellness to figuring out the bus system, it’s the community of people who take interest in one another that makes it such a draw for so many. As a hula-hooping participant spinning by can attest, it appears that aging is only a state of mind at the Durham Center for Senior Life.
