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Chicago Cares, an organization focusing on community volunteering and service, recently picked up some information from our report, Aging in the Shadows: Social Isolation Among Seniors in New York City, for a blog post. Click here to download our report!
On Wednesday, October 5th, volunteers from HSBC Bank served lunch to almost 300 seniors at UNH member Hamilton-Madison House’s City Hall Senior Center.
After a full morning of tai chi and ping pong, the seniors settled into the main dining room for lunch. UNH Board member Mark Hershey (Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer of HSBC Bank USA) led his volunteer team of 15, serving hearty lunches of curry chicken and rice to the lively seniors.
The seniors who utilize the center only pay about $1.25 for a nutritious lunch, keeping them healthy and allowing them an opportunity to socialize with friends. On a busy day, City Hall Senior Center can serve up to 325 meals. Attendance can vary with holidays on the Chinese Lunar calendar –they serve a largely Asian population – and sometimes the attendance at lunch can “depend what’s on the menu,” joked Isabel Ching, Assistant Executive Director for Senior Services for Hamilton-Madison House. And lunch wasn’t the only game in town. Seniors played ping pong, read Chinese language newspapers in the reading room, and played Mahjong in other parts of the center while lunch went on. After lunch cleared out of the cafeteria, karaoke moved in.
As the volunteers filed out, the seniors expressed their gratitude for lunch service with a loud round of applause. Thank you to all the HSBC volunteers for spending time with the Hamilton-Madison House seniors, and to the staff at the City Hall Senior Center for coordinating with UNH to put on this volunteer event.
To see more photos, view our Facebook album.
The stooped woman hustling through the Sunnyside senior center’s main hall at lunchtime is Gertrude McDonald, age 95. She’s spent most of her adult life in politics, as an aide to former state Sen. George Onorato, and as the first woman from Queens to run for the state Assembly in a Democratic primary, back in 1968.
“That was a time when women were still just licking the backs of stamps,” she said.
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Over the past three years the Department for the Aging (DFTA) has lost over $50 million in funding for programs that support the older adult population. DFTA is only supported with $140 million in city funds in the current fiscal year. This relatively small City agency has a major responsibility of assisting one in every eight older New Yorkers live independently in the community.
Volunteers served over 400 lunches to seniors at UNH member Hamilton-Madison House City Hall Senior Center.
New York City's Department for the Aging released a list of the 105
Senior Centers to be closed. This will potentially affect 8,000 seniors
in the City, eliminating nutritional, health, and social support.
The City announced the names of 105 senior centers doomed to close within the month due to budget cuts.
40% of the senior center system may be at risk of shutting down due to an approximately $25 million budget cut being debated in Albany.
Nancy Wackstein, Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses, responds to an NY Times article about the elderly in the City.
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